McLuhan response-Anna L.

The key argument that McLuhan posits, the straightforward title “The Medium is the Message,” confuses many people as in evident in the some people’s responses from his interview- the importance/relevance of content is questioned and one woman pointedly asked what the point would be to the interview, or even to her asking the question. McLuhan responded saying that his argument does not suggest that the content is itself worthless, but that rather that content is contained within the construct of the medium, which comparably has a much greater ruling effect. I think the weakness of this interview is that he fails to outline in concrete terms what effects he is concerned about, other than a “shift in awareness” from literacy. From reading this chapter in Understanding Media: Extensions of Man, I found a couple other common themes. One is that he criticizes that TV is a numbing nothingness. Also, I think it is interesting to consider how community works with TV because McLuhan also critiques it for creating isolation; but in another sense, if large amounts of people are tuning in to watch a specific event it creates community collapsing the importance of distance.  I think a lot of this reading is difficult to sort through because it feels antiquated when McLuhan uses the advent of print and electricity as points of comparison. If he mistrusted the impacts of television on society so much, who knows what he would think of the internet today. His point that it takes a long time to accurately analyze these effects is valid. 

It seems to me that a medium, or any user-interface design, is most successful when it appears to be effortless. As a consumer, I want to be drawn into the story/argument. As Whitney has mentioned in class, even with abstract themes work that takes you elsewhere is the most successful. We often take this reality for granted which is perhaps why McLuhan’s argument of the medium’s paramount significance important is startling.

            In terms of examples, while someone already presented on Nam June Paik, I thought of his work that included the “map” of televisions because it comments how the medium itself functions across the country- Electronic Superhighway, http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=71478. 

           I also looked at Video Tape Study No. 3 because it uses distorted television footage. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EECKIAHJUlk