Message or Massage?

Marshall McLuhan, a famous man of Toronto Canada, was named a media guru of his time. Marshall envisioned our society as people who would someday end up merging the media world of seeing and hearing together as well as being able to tie together the human race through electronic media. The only thing that this would imply was that he envisioned the World Wide Web before it was ever even invented. Where did this guy come from and how could he have envisioned something so far beyond its time, especially after steam engines were still a thing of the present in his own time period. I’m very confused to think that he could have foretold such a future. Is he a Divinci of our time? Marshall was alive from 1911-1980 which would have given him a glimpse at his dreams becoming a reality. The curious thing that he envisioned was that he wanted this electronic media to help the human race to become closer to God. Later in his life he took back this want and need to become at a greater divinity level and called this future electronic media the anti-Christ.

Medium is the Massage?

He ended up writing a book. He named it Medium is the Massage. The funny thing is, is that in print his book ended up becoming Medium is the Message. This screw up was the perfect title. It was one that he thought fit the book in entirety. He originally liked the first title for the fact that it shaped human interaction like a hand on a pommel of a saddle, but all great minds must be open to all types of new ideas.

CBS Interview in 1977






Marshall studied the effects of the media and major social figures. He exclaimed that to capture people’s attention with electronic media of today’s standards, you must have charisma. It was funny because he was kind of making fun of former world leaders, saying that they wouldn’t have last a month on television because of how “hot they tend to be”. They represented themselves and not everyone else. They had their own image. Marshall told of Adolf Hitler, because of his hot headedness to being his own person. On television you must look like everyone else otherwise there is no connection to the audience. On television you want to be able to be similar to those who you are speaking to. This was information that came from Marshall’s interview on CBS in 1977, remembering he only lived to 1980, sadly.

This man was a hoot. He was so smart in the fact that he learned from watching and observing what was out there. He specialized in the media, but doesn’t the medium involve everything around us? It really is a direct line from informer to the informed. There might be more than one medium, but it all comes down to the fact that media is everything we are exposed to. Marshall has made it a point to tell us that in order for us to want to accept what is transmitted to our brain, the informer must be of some kind of person that illustrates our self. Confusing as it may sound I would definitely look into this topic more, for the fact that Marshall has only opened a can of worms, and media is a never ending constantly changing thing that is us and can only become more of our lives. We need to be able to change with it and know that there are no boundaries and that we cannot be closed minded about any of this ever. I really enjoyed listening to his thoughts and ideas on this matter of how the electronic media is ever changing, and I hope you appreciate it too.