Monday, December 8, 2014

REPOST: The Medium is the Message

In Marshal McLouhan's "The Medium is the Message" Marshall McLuhan was concerned with the observation that we always seem to focus on the obvious in media. In doing so, we miss the changes in our affairs that are subtly conveyed to us. When we create a new innovation, if its an invention or a new idea, many of its properties are fairly obvious to us. We know what it will nominally do, or at least what it is intended to do, and in the end we know what it might replace. We often know what its advantages and disadvantages might be. But it is also often the case that, after a long period of time and experience with the new innovation, we look backward and realize that there were some effects of which we were entirely unaware at the outset. These effects are known as "unintended consequences," although "unanticipated consequences" is another interesting way to convey this idea.

This is seen in the Ted Talk, "Changing the Educational Paradigm" where Sir Ken Robinson takes a very complex and mundane idea and makes it new and invigorating by the medium in which he uses. It is this idea, where the medium is an extension of the mind, where an idea that would otherwise be overlooked is heavily watched and praised.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U

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