Response to "The medium is the message"

Marshall McLuhan states that “the medium is the message.” A medium can carry content, but it also carries its own “personal and social consequences” which are independent of the content. If that is true, then (ignoring the content) what does the message of a particular medium say? McLuhan provides a slew of analogies to answer this question, few of which are particularly appropriate in my opinion. However, McLuhan also approaches this question by classifying a medium as an “extension of ourselves.” More specifically, all mediums are extensions of our human senses. McLuhan says that our senses “configure the awareness and experience of each one of us.” A medium can be viewed as a way to share, or perhaps consolidate, the awareness of individuals. In this way, a medium has the potential to create a collective awareness out of many individual awarenesses; this is a medium’s message. The radio, for example, is “about” the consolidation of aural awareness. The TV is “about” the consolidation of aural and visual awareness. These mediums affect the very essence of a culture, solely from the exchange of individual experiences. As C.G. Jung says of the effect of the institution of slavery on Roman masters’ psychology, which Mcluhan adapts to describe media, “No one can shield himself from such an influence.”