The Medium is the Message

Today we explored the concept pioneered by Marshal McLuhan known as, "The Medium is the Message."

A medium is a tool, anything from a screwdriver to a television to a pill. A medium is a tool that helps you do something. Though a medium (tool) helps you, it also colors the way you think about the world.

To clarify this concept I took you on a journey through the history of human language.

Toward the beginning of humankind's languaging time on earth, we did our abstract communication almost exclusively through our mouths. The mouth was our medium of communication.


When we communicate through our mouths, we speak. But oral communication doesn't last very long. It evaporates as soon as we stop speaking. Also, you need to have people nearby to hear the speech if you actually want to communicate. And, happily, if someone has a question about what you're saying, he or she can speak with you immediately.

So, when you use your mouth as a medium of communication, then communication is:

1. Present-oriented (it evaporates immediately)
2. A face-to-face activity (people need to be nearby).
3. A two-way operation (your audience can speak back)

Those three elements are the "message" of the "medium" of your mouth as a communicator.
Then along came written language. Written language as a medium sends a completely different message about communication than oral language sends.
Suddenly writing is future-oriented. Words can now stick around for years, possibly even outlasting their creators. A word that comes from a chisel doesn't just evaporate like speech, rather, it continues on. With the advent of writing language is suddenly durable.

Another important thing has changed as well. When you read something, you usually don't question the text. The reasons being, it won't answer. Writing has made language into a one-way communication: from author to reader. The reader cannot respond the way an audience member can.

So with the medium of written language sends two messages that are very different from the messages speech sends:

1. Language is durable. It is future-oriented.
2. Language is a one-way communication. The reader cannot respond to the author.
   

We've been looking at writing carved into stone. Below we have writing on a piece of papyrus. What's the difference between stone and paper as mediums. What message do these two different media send about the nature of the language inscribed on them?
Well, papyrus is certainly more portable. If I were a king and wanted to send a message, I'd much rather use papyrus than granite. However, If I wanted to inscribe my kingly commandments to rule my kingdom through the ages, I'd use stone. (Is that why Jehovah inscribed the ten commandments on stone instead of Post-it notes?)

Something that is written on a piece of paper has much less weight (literally and metaphorically) than something carved into stone. The fact that you took the time to carve something into stone means that your words are important and should last through the ages.

The medium is the message:

• stone = important
  
• papyrus = not as important.

Here's Seymour the Monk making a copy of the Bible. There are a lot of words in the Bible and he doesn't want to make any mistakes. So he proceeds slowly and carefully. It takes him months, if not years, to complete the copy.

Now it's true that he didn't carve it into stone. But the copying did take a significant portion of his life. And copying a book by hand is the only way to get a copy. It's a do-it-yourself affair. Therefore, books are very valuable.

So valuable, in fact, that books were often chained to their bookshelves, and the owners (often monasteries) would inscribe curses on them directed against anyone thinking about stealing the book.

For him that Stealeth a Book from this Library,
Let it change into a Serpent in his hand & rend him.
Let him be struck with Palsy, & all his Members blasted.
Let him languish in Pain crying aloud for Mercy,
Let there be no Surcease to his Agony till he sink to Dissolution.
Let Bookworms gnaw his Entrails in token of the Worm that dieth not,
When at last he goeth to his final Punishment,
Let the flames of hell consume him for ever & aye.

So, the fact that information was bound up in a book made that information extra special. The medium was the message.

But then along came the printing press.
And then suddenly books became much easier to acquire. A book that once took months or years of dedicated labor to produce could now be produced in a few weeks. And it wouldn't just be one book that was produced, it would be a whole slew.

Suddenly the medium of the book rendered written information less valuable. No longer did you have to make a pilgrimage to a monastery to read a book, you could buy it at a store. Books were suddenly everywhere, which meant that written information was also everywhere. And with that proliferation of books came a proliferation of writing, some of it good, some of it bad. The book's message had changed, it no longer said, "That contained herein be valuable enough to lay a curse upon he who stealeth it," rather "Aw, you can get this information just about anywhere. And if you lose it, no problem!"

• Hand-copied book = valuable
• Printed book = not as valuable
  

And then came the copy machine.
Suddenly the written word could be copied with almost no effort. As written language proliferated its value plummeted. A piece of paper, once the vehicle of a god's holy word, or the immortal utterances of poets and philosophers became the bearer of memos and agendas and fliers for Joe's Eatery.

• Printed book = valuable
• Copied paper = not as valuable
  

And then, the most recent medium in written language: the computer and its attendant Internet.


There is so much written language on the Internet that you could not read 1 percent of it if you spent a lifetime at it. Anyone with access to a computer and at least a nose, if not a finger or two, can post some written language on the Web.

Through the medium of the Internet written information has hit an historical low. It may contain the Bible and the works of the poets and philosophers, but it also contains the endless ramblings of the unwashed masses.

However, the Internet has restored to us what we had lost with the transition from oral to written communication. We can suddenly have a conversation again. We could not converse with books, but the instant nature of written communication on the Internet makes it so we can in fact, query the author of a piece of confusing writing. Two-way communication has been restored to written language.

So. The medium is the message. If you change the medium of communication, you change what communication means. Oral communication says something different than written communication. Paper says something different than stone. That which is copied by a monk says something different about the value of a piece of written communication than that which is copied by a copy machine.

And remember, you read this on the Internet.