Talk:The medium is the message

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What's the deal with the free variation between 'message' and 'massage'? Christian Campbell 18:40, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Disagreement

"The media are the message" is a phrase meaning that the generic form of media is more important than any "meaning" or "content" that the media conveys. For McLuhan, the content of media is irrelevant. The form of the medium itself is what changes our consciousness. The previously struck text grossly misrepresents what McLuhan meant. See here for much better explanation: What is the Meaning of The Medium is the Message?

You may have a point, but please don't go scribbling all over the subject page. If you disagree, then why not re-write this article? Wompom 14:03, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

the last entry in the faq located here [1], also has a good explanation in agreement with the previous person's edit. 65.6.133.168 01:49, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

I read through that link but I can't help but think Mcluhan was deliberately being obscurantist here. The medium clearly isn't the message if you interpret it literally. Mcluhan meant to say that it is merely a part of the "message" in terms of how the medium affects us subconsciously (or maybe even consciously). But of course, he had to go for the sensationalist, over-the-top equivocation of medium and message that leaves everyone confused, and then people have to go back and figure out what he was really trying to say. Why can't people just say things clearly and logically :(.

Mcluhan: "The medium IS the message"

Typical reasonable person: Really? So the medium and the message are literally the same thing? That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.

Not-Mcluhan: "The medium is *a* message"

Reasonable person: OHHH. So you're not saying there is only one message, but that it is merely another type of message that we should be aware of. Well I'm so glad you're not like that other person who falsely implied that they were the same. Boy was that irritating!

Yup :P

24.150.131.48 (talk) 22:20, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Not a term paper

Recent revisions to this page read like a term paper, with jargon, buzzwords, and analysis that is inappropriate and would be incomprehensible to the layman: the audience of an encyclopedia. McLuhan's writings themselves were not always easily accessible to newcomers: the point of having this article here is to make it clearer to someone who knows nothing of McLuhan's work, not a media theorist or communications student him or herself. "The medium is the message" is one his his greatest observations - and with examples is easily understood by people, transforming the way they look at media - our job here is to try to facilitate that understanding. Hence, I replaced the jargon-y term paper with something more comprehensible and concrete, taken from the McLuhan article, with some tweaking and additions. The previous edits also had incorrect and/or missing bibliographic details, now corrected; also had some language that was lifted directly from the source, which is plagiarism even if it is cited, unless it is clearly indicated that it is a quote which this was not - also corrected this. Tvoz |talk 20:54, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Heritage Minute

Along with probably the majority of Canadians I relate to this article and derive personal meaning from it due seeing the Heritage Minute for this idea. I'm believe a link (http://www.histori.ca/minutes/minute.do?id=10226) would be helpful for people to be able to access in the external links. I am not sure if this is type of resource is considered appropriate, however, - if it's not that's pretty ironic - and am leaving the decision to add this up to someone more familiar with Wikipedia and the content.142.68.198.37 (talk) 13:54, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I have just looked at the video clip and read the accompanying text. It is very nice. I have included a reference to it on the review of the Internet Galaxy Book. --Михал Орела (talk) 11:47, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Message/Massage

I've reverted "Originally The Medium is the Massage" as the introduction states that that phrase came from a later book by McLuhan (published in 1967).Blakkandekka (talk) 16:33, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Order

I rearranged paragraphs, bringing it back closer to where it was last year, because the article discussed the significance of the phrase before explaining its meaning. I think a reader first wants to know the simplest case of what McLuhan meant, then perhaps some elaboration of the intricacies, and then the broader significance of it. If you disagree, well, that's why we have a Revert button. dweinberger (talk) 22:02, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Origin of Phrase

The statement, "The phrase was introduced in his most widely known book, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, published in 1964," is fallacious. McLuhan used "the medium is the message," as early as 1959. See the Yale Book of Quotations for a 1960 occurrence. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.132.173.192 (talk) 14:17, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

More Examples

I would like to read some more examples of specific types of media and how they influence people's reception. The article mentions movies. What about radio, television, social media? What is it specifically about them that differentiates them from other media? --37.201.97.178 (talk) 17:26, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

Grammar

There weren't any major grammar issues. However, I did find one incomplete sentence. So, I removed the period prior to the sentence starting and made the sentence complete. -Kaitlyn.Kelly (talk) 19:33, 26 January 2020 (UTC)