Understanding Media -Marshall McLuhan

Understanding Media - Marshall McLuhan

Normally medium is treated as a tool to convey contents. But McLuhan says “the medium is the message.” And according to his arguments, medium is also any extension of ourselves and it shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and action. (p.9) People are making media and following this people is being changed. I could understand media influence the contents. Media can change trait of the contents. For example, if we find the same articles on the web and on the newspapers, even though we would get same information, it influence the way we accept it. But if media is just a message, would this different information from the same media be the same thing? Could jean and corduroy pants deal with the same? Indeed, could the media be the message itself?

I was interested in compare hot media and cold media depending on participation by audience and amount of information. These two characters can be standards to classify media, but I think only two categories lacks explaining many different kinds of media. And I think to define the distinctions of media; we should consider not only the messages from the media but also the contents that media show us.

I totally agree that media has its own voice and it has enough power to influence us. But at the same time, the media without any contents is just media for us. In my opinion, people expect more meanings form the media than just the message form it. I mean people often pay more attention what media says than what it is by itself. People just feel notice the message from the media unconsciously, but people try to read the contents that they can notice consciously. I want to say that the message which is from the media and the contents that it has make the different dimensional messages that we can accept.