Reading Reflection # 6: McCluhan's “The Medium is the Message” & Writer/Designer "Analy

In Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, Marshall McLuhan’s titles his first chapter, “The Medium is the Message,” and argues that the any medium -- whether we look at art, transportation, or light --is an extension of ourselves and the machine that created it. Mcluhan goes on to suggest that the “content” is always a recreation of another medium, and the message of a given mediums lies in the patterns of design demonstrated in its creation. “For the 'message' of any medium or technology is the change of scale or pace or pattern that it introduces into human affairs. The railway did not introduce movement or transportation or wheel or road into human society, but it accelerated and enlarged the scale of previous human functions, creating totally new kinds of cities and new kinds of work and leisure” (1) Using transportation as an example here, McLuhan shows that the machine/technology/medium itself produced an impact on humanity independent from the content of the railway. The idea that ‘the medium is the message’ because of its impact on humanity, is equally relevant when we consider writing in the digital age. Technology accelerates the rate by which our ideas or thoughts are consumed by others; it didn’t invent writing or thoughts, but the medium itself offers an interactivity that impacts human existence. This got me thinking about Facebook, and the way multimedia, as a machine, is at the essence of the content we received on such platforms. Professor Jeff Nunokawa publishes a daily essay on facebook. All of his posts contain both a visual, and an excerpt from a piece of literature. The medium of these essay is in the message itself because Jeff’s work is an interactive process unique to its medium. He receives comments on his posts, and responds back, often, as he has done with this post, with the line ‘even better’. This line acknowledges how the communication between his audience and his writing has actually impacted the content itself, revealing that the message is in the medium’. Clearly the medium itself is part of the content here. If he didn’t write these articles in a public place, he wouldn’t be able to respond or craft this ongoing dialogue.

In chapter seven, “Challenge and Collapses: The Nemesis of Creativity,” McCluhan argues that new technology inevitably impacts humanity, and that no society has ever possessed the ability to be “immune” to it’s new extensions or technology. Considering Mcluhan's point here might relieve some of the anxiety over the common fear that we are “all growing too dependent on technology.” Technology has always shifted humanity, but the development of the machine we fear was made by human and is therefore an extension of us and our society’s needs. In this chapter, McCluhan suggests that our best way of understanding the extensions and impacts of a particular new machine, is to look not to our past or to our future, but rather to the artist “who grasps the implications of his actions and of new knowledge in his own time. He is the man of integral awareness” ( 13). This integral awareness is important so we don’t overlook the extension of machine’s impact and can recognize the full picture of a machines impact. McCluhan notes, “A technological extension of our bodies to alleviate physical stress can bring on psychic stress that may be much worse” ( 14). I think this is important to consider in relations to our evolving academic standards, and the higher expectations demanded of students in the digital age. It seems that as more and more students have access to technology and devices in the classroom, our expectations of what a student can do and produce grows higher. While on one-hand, it seems that our students might be stronger academically at a younger than they were before, I worry that by asking more of our students in the classroom, we are sacrificing healthy lifestyles and joys of ignorance in their childhood.