McLuhan: The Medium is the Message

A Brief History

Marshall McLuhan was a Canadian theorist and philosopher who focused his life's work on and around media.  He is famous for the coining the phrases "The Medium is the Message" and the "Global Village" a preconception of the internet by almost 30 years.  McLuhan is also famous for his tetrid, also known as McLuhan's Laws of Media.

McLuhan's investigation and observation of Media focused much of his work on the human interaction and relationship to media.  He viewed media as an extension of the human experience, starting at the body.  To explain these interactions and relationships McLuhan came across four things, McLuahn's Tetrads, that occur simultaneously and universally, they are:

McLuhan's Tetrads

Enhance

The question of what is improved or enhanced by the new media?  What is made possible or allowed to accelerate?

Reverse

When a new form is pushed to the limits it will reverse the original characteristics, leaving the question of what is the potential of reversal for this new form?

Retrieve

An earlier action or service that has been brought back into usage through a new form, leaving a question of what obsolesced ground is back and an essential part of this new form?

Obsolesce

What is pushed aside or obsolesced by the new media or form?

 Application of McLuhan's Tetrads

McLuhan's Tetrads is applicable to a variety of social behaviors, terms and technologies.  Social networking, for instance, can be applied to McLuhan's Tetrad.  This is a  technology that enhances communication, yet it reverses social interaction outside of its media.  Social media obsolesces proper social behaviors and filters, and it retrieves written and other nonverbal communications.

Timothy Kraft, a Web Analytics Professional and blogger, has a great blog entry that speaks of the ways in which McLuhan's Tetrad effects the internet.  Though the entry is almost 3 years old, the information and application of the Tetrad is still valid. 

Still need proof?  Let's consider Cars for a moment.  Vehicles enhance our method of travel, allowing us to travel great distances in short times, however they also obsolesce a majority of exercise that would normally occur, contributing to laziness and obesity.  However they also retrieve carpools, and groups looking to travel together, yet we find accidents and hold ups from people who do not commute properly, cause accidents or near accidents through negligence or lack of concern, and thus it slows our new method of travel, causing our reverse. 

McLuhan's work is a further and more complex analysis of cause vs effect, cost vs benefit, pro vs con and good vs evil.  Broken down into 4 simple categories, each containing a simple question of how has this media effected our subject in relation to the category.  McLuhan's work forces us to look at the whole picture, to examine it, to weigh it and see its morality, to judge if our cost is worth its benefit.  "The Medium is the Message" is more cryptic than it is straight forward.  It is not a saying that is meant to say that the message is being given to us as is, but it is mean to say that the message is a show of actions, how it is being presented, and further more it is being shown to us, as well as explained and understood, when we examine it through McLuhan's tetrad.