The Medium is the Message by Marshall McLuhan | Animated Book Review

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Marshall McLuhan's 1967 book "The Medium is the Massage" (the typo is deliberate) beautifully articulates his revolutionary ideas in a concise manner. This review explains what is meant by the medium is the message and the global village. It explores some McLuhan's quotes from the book, showing how prophetic they have become.

[@maxheadrom3088]

You should have given more emphasis to the relationship between the medium and the message perhaps by adding how McLuhan observed this for the first time: as he was teaching Literature somewhere in the US, one of his fellow professors had the students stick poems to the columns on the university's building as an attempt to increase appreciation for poetry - and McLuhan noticed that the change of medium changed the way the receiver of the message (the students) interacted with the message itself (the poems) because these were in a different medium (the columns) and this started his life's work. Here's a good quote about it: “Environments are not passive wrappings, but are, rather, active processes which are invisible. The ground rules, pervasive structure, and overall patterns of environments elude easy perception.” Saying McLuhan's ideas were received with skepticism is actually an softening of what a lot of people thought about him: they considered him a hack. However, he's now considered a person ahead of it's time and we could use one of his witty quotes to explain why he was considered a hack in his days: “In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is a hallucinating idiot...for he sees what no one else does: things that, to everyone else, are not there.” He also predicted advertisement would take over politics because the new electronic medium favored it more than analytical content: “The successor to politics will be propaganda. Propaganda, not in the sense of a message or ideology, but as the impact of the whole technology of the times.” The points made about interference of social networks and foreign actors both in Brexit and the 2016 US elections are now understood to have been exaggerated. The main problem is the hegemonic position advertisement gained in the political process: it deals with winning elections at any cost but are always - as all advertisement it - lies. In both cases it was the ignored groups in society that being fed up with the lies they were told made a gamble and decided to vote for something different. It was the economic and financial difficulties these groups were (are) going through that lead to these results and not manipulation of social media¹. The narrative that it was manipulation that lead to those results is an example of the "cold war" McLuhan talks about for they are coordinated messages aimed at keeping things like they and spreading the idea that change is dangerous. The dam will break again and next time it won't be an idiot like Trump that it will elect. 1) In many other countries this was attempted by Cambridge Analytica and it did not work. What helped Brexit to win was actually the realization - using information acquired through social media - that there were around 3 million voters in the UK that, though disenfranchised, did not vote and this were the voters that gave Brexit the win. In the US, the discontentment was much more visible with its records in middle age family men suicides and record opioid overdoses in middle class industrial towns.

[@Obtaineudaimonia]

Hi guys, Marshall McLuhan was an eccentric visionary but many of his ideas were difficult to understand. His 1967 book "The Medium is the Massage" changed all that and articulates his revolutionary ideas in a clear and concise manner. This review explores some McLuhan's quotes from the book and shows how prophetic they have turned out to be, forty years on. Cheers

[@gardensofthegods]

Eudaimonia I remember learning about that a long time ago in high school... and the global village... which came true.

[@wikhzzz]

Very helpful! I'm currently learning this in college so thank your for making it easier for me to understand

[@afzalrahim6783]

Our teachers could not explain this complex problem so well then you did !!

[@adotheginger]

That's because the medium is the message - An animated 5 minute video will do much better than a person talking for a full hour, with no visual support However, we should be cautious of bite-sized information as it could bite us back

[@tedankhamenbonnah4848]

Using this in Advanced Media I teach tomorrow. Thank you for sharing, you have a new follower.

[@nepaliain]

A very useful resource, particularly as my Y10 Media students are currently in the midst of studying news. I'm going to use this with them today as Mcluhan often becomes reduced to a single quote in modern media courses when his work represents so much more.

[@Obtaineudaimonia]

Thanks Iain. Yes he was a very interesting individual if you dig beyond the usual sound-byte, particularly when it comes to understanding media.

[@TheGagakProduction]

Thank you for this wonderful video. Now i need to make a report about it :)

[@khusbuasy8164]

Hi, can you please tell from where the last lines of paragraph is from I mean which book it would be really helpful if you could tell me that I need for referencing for my university essay. Thank you

[@markc5960]

I hope kids formally studying media does a lot more than see this video. I've been out of school for decades now and I find works like his extremely relevant to our times. Also recommended is Neil Postman's work.

[@thehopeofeden597]

Nerdwriter also has a pretty great vid on this same topic!

[@ParkerBG]

What is a Communications Fearist?

[@cfwintner1]

His words make a lot more sense to me now than they did then.

[@islakyuz5723]

I've been trying to learn this topic by reading articles in my mother language which were very complicated. But now I am easily well-informed although I'm not a native in English thanks to this video

[@Otoskire]

So from what I understand, this theory seems to claim that the “da Vinci code” has the same importance as the “Quran” or Karl Marx’s manifesto. I know I’m missing a huge part of the point, so can someone help me out and fill in the blanks I didn’t get?

[@dvargas3553]

im pretty sure i watched a video on vice that literally was almost word for word the same as this guys video...

[@TheAudreyduh]

Thanks for pointing that out, I'm dyslexic so I have no idea if I made a mistake or the authors made a mistake, happily it was the authors this time.

[@Obtaineudaimonia]

No problem Audrey, glad I could help.

[@marshallmcluhan33]

No mistake was made 😉

[@KarinaDaydream]

Love this

[@PasswordHackerz]

Awesome video!

[@Obtaineudaimonia]

Cheers

[@jimbeam8454]

Yes very good thank you

[@jamestolliver1655]

your channel is fire dawg!

[@Obtaineudaimonia]

Cheers Seamus

[@gardensofthegods]

That's funny I was reading a comment a couple minutes ago by somebody who didn't think any of the late night TV shows are THE MEDIA .... he thought they were different from the news and social media. I had to explain to him that anything on TV is considered Media .

[@auntbeatrice6911]

you win the MVP (most valuable pedant)!

[@Big6witdalil6]

1:31 think I saw that in a show

[@beastybear4499]

Good video

[@MelchiorJHKoch]

Nearly 50 years you meant!

[@antytrend]

The fact that information lasts longer now still leaves information as the more important element of the equation. Imagine if the internet was JUST cat videos... the medium wouldn't cause the same issues. I dont understand how the majority of the content of this video relates to the phrase "the way that we send and receive information is more important than the information". I'll have to think o it.

[@igorst.georgesbutler6783]

It is fairly clear that the primary point in Mcluhan's analysis was so correct that you missed it and spread the message of the medium, not to prove his point but to obscure it.

[@antytrend]

interesting, can you say more on that?

[@jakeparrotta1464]

lol not sure how McLuhan developed a British accent during those quotes, great video though the application to today's world is spot on

[@vinny1995]

Exactly what I was thinking. He was Canadian and pretty sure he didn't have a Brittish accent in the videos I saw of his on-stage interview.

[@RogueWolfCreations]

Mcluhan is a poet

[@Big6witdalil6]

That’s wild

[@maxheadrom3088]

One example of how the medium changes the message: do you notice any difference in the comments you post on KZbin from a desktop PC and a smart phone?

[@markc5960]

Or on another social media platform even if it is over the same video. Or, for that matter with speech if sharing it in person.

[@lewislabellingcoding5726]

Surprised that there are not a lot who have been exposed to this... Lol. I read it in French class.. Grin.

[@samuelosebemoriasi2217]

I still don' t see the connection between media being the message and cultural changes due to media

[@gavinsilva3919]

SMO A well everyone talks in person less. Social media has completely changed the way we interact. Plus we communicate differently compared to 10 years ago

[@lunarcalendar368]

Visit Instagram then you will understand cultural changes

[@ferroherre9906]

jackfrags is that you? EDIT: He's a gamer

[@Claudiaxyz]

Mass age

[@alek0088]

「こんなにいいとは思えない」、

[@ericswain4177]

Using Marshall McLuhan's ideas and Eudaimonia Animated Book Review. Lol !

[@davidh2794]

Isn't this guy just stating the obvious in a very convoluted and esoteric way: that human society and human behavior are greatly affected by technology? Genius? Really? I would say that he's very bright, but I don't think he can be compared with Einstein, Faraday, Newton, and Galileo. He made some vague predictions that turned out somewhat accurate...ok...with all the people in the world making predictions, some are inevitably going to be right. Whoopdeedooo.

[@joedelilo5608]

david H Lol, why don't you read his book and make a judgement. Obviously McLuhan's message is dumbed down in a KZbin video meant to be seen by the general public. Read his book.

[@davidh2794]

Joe Delilo thanks for the tip. Maybe I will one day. Too busy these days, hence the youtube watching. This dude definitely seems like a trip.

[@antytrend]

Nobody... is comparing him to those people!

[@davidh2794]

@@antytrend I...am comparing him to those people! Doesn’t matter anyway because the medium is the message.

[@Rt.a6937]

كمان اشياء ملهاش داعي في حياتنا بس برضو منشوفها عشان الدراسة

[@sdachannel7331]

su Marshall Mc Luhan I TEMI DELL'UMANO: Alberto Contri "McLuhan non abita più qui?"

[@getsmartquick]

Tries to silence parents arguing with a remote speak more about the societal issues in our industrial complEx not our tech itself

[@markc5960]

How do you measure the "more"? Doesn't the societal issues in our industrial complex become influenced by the technology of the industry? How do you separate that except arbitrarily?

[@getsmartquick]

@@markc5960 Tech is tool it amplifies us even big data guys admit they model tech after us. No wonder it's bias manipulative animalistic etc. I look at people in the environments where it's natural habitat parks social gathering etc. I also look at past usage from the nineteen hundreds to now. Hope that helps

[@markc5960]

@@getsmartquick honestly not really. It's not hard to see the amplification effect, I think in a longer time span it's more significant to see it's mutually reinforcing in kind of a feedback loop. Also an interesting point is how Douglas Rushkoff points out each media revolution involves an elite in the position to 'write' whereas the masses are on a read only level, whether that's the invention of writing itself, the printing press or computer programming. If you're not already familiar I think you'd find his work interesting.

[@getsmartquick]

@@markc5960 Thanks mate I'll check out Douglas rushkoff and get back to you. What your opinion on tech and media like metaverse etc

[@markc5960]

@@getsmartquick I think in general there is a lack of media literacy and as tech becomes more complex that gap between the average user and the tech they use (and are used by) becomes greater and greater, which is of course just another way of saying the same thing Rushkoff points out. Basically we are not really able to handle it.

[@thisisbob1001]

People just love to waste their time.

[@beastybear4499]

Lmao

[@Garglicious]

🤣🤣🤣

[@tedbyron1499]

Isn't it MASSAGE and not MESSAGE? The title is "The Medium Is The Massage." It's a pun and the thesis of the entire book. That all of our mediums (esp electronic) "MASSAGE" information (The "MESSAGE") into our consciousness. Hence: "All Media _Work Us Over_ Completely."