McLuhan

As a Film and Media Studies student I have been exposed to McLuhan's concept and writing before. After taking several classes analyzing film, television, and print media you begin to see just how useful and relevant his ideas are. In the end, you do have to admit that there is a degree of truth to his statement. So much of our society has been impacted by the medium itself over content. Take the Bible and the Qur'an for example. Both are examples of a print medium, and both happen to fall under the category of religious texts. One could argue that because of their differing content their message is fundamentally different. But if you compare the two cultures that have evolved out of the influence of both religions, one will undoubtedly find numerous similarities. In both Christian and Muslim societies there are radicals, capitalists, liberals; a multitude of diverse individuals all impacted by the medium of two different religious texts. The medium of the religious text is thus seen to impact all of mankind, regardless of geographical/cultural distribution in the same way. Two diverse societies emerge, centered on their own respective prophet. The similarities in our religions and cultures (a by-product of religion, to an extent) help show how the medium can in fact be the message.

To bring McLuhan's argument to something a little more tangible and relevant to our course, I'll bring up a reading I did in another class in a unit focusing on McLuhan's idea. We read a selection from Raymond Wiliiams' Television: Technology and Cultural Form in which Williams basically showed that regardless of what's on TV, Americans watch it constantly. Our viewing habits have no relation to content, based on the data he compiled. This would go on to suggest that we don't watch TV for the sake of any content, rather we watch it just for the sake of partaking in the experience of the medium. Society has become fixated with the mere televisual experience above all. This would seem to jive with McLuhan's idea that the medium is the message above content.

Even in this class the medium has an impact on us. Whether it is conscious or subconscious, we often employ  traditions of film in our videos. By traditions of film I mean the standardized (often cinematographic) conventions that have come to define the nature of the film medium. For example, we cannot help but use montage in our videos; it is something that has become so universal in the film medium as a way of effectively communicating ideas to the audience. Regardless of the content of our individual films, we are impacted by the standardized nature of film (that's not to say that we can't be unique and develop our own unique techniques and styles).

At the same time, I feel McLuhan's argument has considerable flaws that actually reveal the importance of content in every medium. He uses several blanket statements and radical comparisons between technology and media that don't really seem to have any rational grounding. For example, he uses the light bulb as an example of a medium being the message. As it is a widespread way of communicating information, he shows that a light bulb is a subtle medium that content has no obvious bearing on. However, I would argue that light bulbs are more of a product of survival rather than communications. Human beings need light in the night. it has undoubtedly saved millions of lives and enabled the existence of billions. To say it is exclusively a product of communication is just absurd. The light bulb was not invented to be a communicant, this is a byproduct of living in a successful commercial society. To base an argument on something that wasn't developed as an exclusive means of communication seems pretty shaky. I have a hard time finding the relevance between the light bulb and traditional mediums, such as print and film.

Thus, his arguments are just as unfounded as Sarnoff's and Forster's are. I don't think he really has the grounds to criticize their work given the sweeping generalizations he makes throughout this paper. To even argue the point he is arguing contradicts his own point. As that audience member pointed out in the interview we watched last Tuesday, if the medium is the message what is the point of his writing in this paper? If content has no important bearing on our society, why write anything ever?

The fallacies of his argument actually reveal how important content is to the concept medium as message. In my opinion, content is a huge part of any medium. I believe it can have impacts on the way we think. In the print medium, it is especially the case that if you can't communicate your content effectively your argument falls flat on its face. Without substantial content, no medium can stand.

Content is essential to effective communicative mediums. Samuel Beckett often commented on miscommunication in human society through his short, choppy, often nonsensical and circular dialogue. Plays like Waiting for Godot and Endgame. In using this approach, the content embodies the whole point of the medium: communication. Without effective content, communication breaks down.

As my artist inspiration I'll include the following link from the Seinfeld episode "The Puffy Shirt," an episode focused on break downs in communications (a theme the show seems to be obsessed with).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFRoXoh6aks

By exploring miscommunication in its own televisual medium, this episode emphasizes the importance of maintaining clear content in order to take full use of the medium.