Mediated communication expert Marshall McLuhan once said, “The medium is the message.” In saying this, McLuhan asserts that the way in which a message is delivered to its audience has a greater impact on message recipients than the message content itself.
The available mediums through which we communicate and receive information are changing. We are moving from the radio and newspaper to various forms of online social media like Facebook, Twitter, Google, and YouTube. Some people even have the ability to skip over television commercials with the invention of DVR and some can surf the Internet during a flight using airplane Wi-Fi systems.
Changes like these are vastly changing how we communicate, learn, and process information. Instead of leaving a voicemail, we leave a wall post. Instead of watching a live rerun on TV, we watch the recorded premiere. Instead of only connecting to the Internet through a chord, we can connect via satellite almost anywhere. We now live in a world where we have immediate access to more information, from more sources, than ever before.
Do you feel that McLuhan was correct in his assertion that ‘the medium is the message’? How has the emergence of new forms of communication changed the way you interact with others around you? Do you think this change is good or bad?
The available mediums through which we communicate and receive information are changing. We are moving from the radio and newspaper to various forms of online social media like Facebook, Twitter, Google, and YouTube. Some people even have the ability to skip over television commercials with the invention of DVR and some can surf the Internet during a flight using airplane Wi-Fi systems.
Changes like these are vastly changing how we communicate, learn, and process information. Instead of leaving a voicemail, we leave a wall post. Instead of watching a live rerun on TV, we watch the recorded premiere. Instead of only connecting to the Internet through a chord, we can connect via satellite almost anywhere. We now live in a world where we have immediate access to more information, from more sources, than ever before.
Do you feel that McLuhan was correct in his assertion that ‘the medium is the message’? How has the emergence of new forms of communication changed the way you interact with others around you? Do you think this change is good or bad?
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2 comments:
Style, content and delivery medium are all important. but if anyone is missing, you don't have real communication.
It's not intrinsically good or bad but I appreciate that new forms of communication are less structured on my time; I can choose when and where I want to deliver messages to my friends, enemies, and relatives with much greater ease and freedom than ever before :)
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