McLUHAN & JENKINS

The Medium is the Message

It’s no wonder that everyone takes Marshal McLuhan’s coined phrase “The medium is the message” the wrong way. It’s so easy to do. I must admit, the first time I heard the phrase I resorted to the most common definitions of “medium” and “message” and immediately disagreed with McLuhan’s view. Mark Federman’s article ‘What is the Meaning of The Medium is the Message?’ (2004) helped clear up any confusion and (for lack of a better word) redefine the key words. He discussed McLuhan’s idea that the message is not the content of a play or newscast, but the change in attitude or action on the part of the audience that results from the medium (2004). Furthermore, a medium is "any extension of ourselves" and is not restricted to Broadcast and Print. McLuhan suggests that a hammer extends our arm and that the wheel extends our legs and feet (2004).

While I agree with McLuhan’s idea that noticing change in our societal or cultural ground conditions indicates the presence of a new message (2004), I feel he could have said it in a less-confusing way. “The medium is the message” does have a ring to it but almost everyone who hears it for the first time will misunderstand it. Stay tuned for my revised McLuhan phrase.

I have read a lot of Henry Jenkins throughout my short time at university and he is probably my favourite media scholar. ‘Worship at the altar of convergence: A new paradigm for understanding media change’ (2006) helped clear up a lot of my misconceptions regarding convergence. My original understanding was that convergence is the flow of information through different media channels. While this is part of Jenkins’ definition, it is so much more. It is also the media industry collaborating and branching out into new avenues as well as people taking the media into their own hands. Jenkins (2006) discusses the changing relationship between the traditional sender/reciever media model to a more two-way, interactive one. The media is becoming both a top-down corporate-driven process and a bottom-up consumer-driven process (Jenkins, H 2006).

While reading about the many different areas of convergence, I found myself dwelling on the argument that, sooner or later, all media content is going to flow through a single black box into our living rooms. Jenkins disagrees with this argument straight away, but it is an interesting idea. Could there be one device to rule them all in the future? The smartphone is getting pretty close and the new gaming consoles (Ps3 and Xbox) are can supply most of your media needs but in the end, I think Jenkins is right. 

References

Federman, M (2004), What is the Meaning of The Medium is the Message? 'McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology', pp1-4

Jenkins, H (2006) “Worship at the altar of convergence”: A new paradigm for understanding media change. In H. Jenkins, Convergence culture: Where old and new media collide (pp 1-24) 

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