The article The Medium IS the Message by Marshall McLuhan is a very interesting article. It really makes you look at things in ways you wouldn't usually look at them. He has some very good points within his article that support the message he is trying to get across. One thing that I enjoyed about the article is the way McLuhan used Shakespeare's work to support his message. It seemed as if Shakespeare understood the idea that The Medium IS the Message. Especially in reading the part about how in Romeo and Juliet it states "But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It speaks, and yet says nothing". It shows how TV is just there sending the message of whatever is being shown. But really it is not real communication because it is just a box portraying things.
This can also be said about the example of the lightbulb. The lightbulb is just a bulb and is the delivering factor with lighting. But in fact what the light bulb creates is many possibilities for people to do things under this light. It creates a sort of social medium in the end. This article was very thought provoking but at the same time, i caught myself not understanding some of it. Although the things within that i did understand really intrigued me.
Hi Beef31! Great post/discussion about this article! I definitely agree with you that this article was difficult to read and hard to comprehend at times. I caught myself having to reread it. However, I find myself agreeing with the basis of McLuhan message. Like you, I really liked the examples he provided to help readers (like us) better understand what he was talking about. For instance, the quotes and passages from Shakespeare and the light bulb. Both really helped me grasp a sense that the medium IS the message. I like your detailed response to the article. What I also found interesting was that it seems like a lot of these "messages" that McLuhan talks about get buried over with new messages and may be the reason why we don't see them as message anymore.
ReplyDeleteBeef31,
ReplyDeleteI also enjoyed your post on the Medium is the Message. I feel like the examples that McLuhan used to support his point were very solid. I also really like how he incorporated Shakespeare in his analysis. He did a great job explaining most of his examples, however, at times his explanations had me extremely confused. The light bulb example was my favorite part about the article. He really gives a great description of his point of view and this is the part of the article that I best understood. In the end, after reading the article, I feel like I agree with McLuhan to an extent. I liked how you summed up the light bulb example by saying, "The light bulb is just a bulb and is the delivering factor with lighting. But in fact what the light bulb creates is many possibilities for people to do things under this light. It creates a sort of social medium in the end." This article made me think deeper about the medium and it really uncovered its importance. Overall, great post about a very interesting article.