The Media is the Message
Den kanadensiske mediateoretikern Marshall McLuhan myntade på sextiotalet den berömda frasen "mediet är budskapet," the media is the message. Men vad menade han egentligen med detta uttryck?
- Marshall McLuhan: Mediet = budskapet (utdrag ur Media)
- Marshall McLuhan: Lecture, Florida State University, 1970
- Sök efter uttrycket the media is the message på webben
Om vi får tro Mark Slade, som var personligt bekant med McLuhan, rådde det stor oklarhet om vad uttrycket "the media is the message" innebar när det lanserades i mitten på sextiotalet:
We met in 1963, ... Months later he wrote to say that Understanding Media was out: "Hope it doesn't let you down." Within days of publication I went to talk to him about it, and within minutes he was telling me he would drop his "media is the message" tag. Critics had been quick to acknowledge they hadn't a clue what he meant.
Mark Slade: The Errant Knight and the Anarchist
Ändå kan vi idag på sajten Protecting Kids on The Internet läsa att "Marshall McLuhan proposed in the 1960s in his book, Understanding Media, that the media is the message. Now everyone understands what he meant." Innebär detta att tiden nu hunnit ikapp den visionäre kanadensaren?
Om man tittar på hur McLuhans uttryck används och refereras till på Nätet får man dock ett något annat intryck. Av exemplen här nedan att döma tycks det alltjämt råda stor förvirring kring frasens innebörd:
An icon in his generation, McLuhan wrote Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, in which he advocated “The medium is the message.” This statement sums up his basic theory that the form of media is much more important than the content of the message. McLuhan denies the statement of General David Sarnoff that “We are too prone to make technological instruments the scapegoats for the sins of those who wield them. The products of modern science are not in themselves good or bad; it is the way they are used that determines their value.”
The media is the message; a familiar slogan, uttered by mass media theorist Marshall McLuhan, who meant that the choice of media is everything in communication.
What McLuhan meant by the media is the message, is he meant that it doesn’t matter what you put on TV, TV is TV, it has an intrinsic nature, and whether you’re showing National Geographic specials or slasher movies, TV will do what it does. It has certain qualities, just like driving a car or skiing, certain muscles are going to be exercised, perceptual systems enhanced, others suppressed.
E la comunicazione via rete ha delle sue specifiche modalità, visto che, come dice McLuhan (1965), "the media is the message", nel senso che il medium influenza il contenuto del messaggio.
(Kommunikation över nätet har sin specifika modalitet, eftersom, som MacLuhan uttrycker det (1965) "the media is the message", i betydelse att mediet påverkar budskapets innehåll.)
In the fist place, assuming that “the media is the message” implies that the media can have considerable effects upon individuals. This position was non generally accepted in the Sixties, when the effects of mass communications were said to be minimal, but fit more recent theories and, what is more important, offer a good perspective for approaching the study of new technologies. As a consequence, we are advised to look at the intrinsic effects of new technologies. What we have seen as to Mitchell’s discussion of digital imaging can be regarded as a good example. In addition however we should remark the fact that McLuhan appears to be aware of the role of social factors in determining innovations; indeed, it claims that media can “accelerate or amplify existing
process”Mattia Miani: McLuhan and the theory of communication
The famous communications theorist Marshall McLuhan said it best: “The media is the message.” The communications media choices we give our customers
reveal to what degree we value our relationship with them. The more convenient we make it for our customers, prospects and future employees to learn about our organizations, the more trust they will place in our organizations.
Larssonallen: Building Trust with Customers
McLuhan first pointed out that the media is the message, that the channel through which a message is transmitted is as important as the message itself.
Sarah Trenholm: Untitled
Ur denna sammanställning kan följande betydelser utläsas:
- valet av media är viktigare än vads som sägs;
- mediet är lika viktigt som budskapet;
- valet av media signalerar vilken betydelse man tillmäter mottagarna;
- mediet påverkar budskapets innehåll;
- varje media har en inneboende logik oavsett budskapet som framförs genom det;
- mediet utövar stor påverkan på individen;
Det enda dessa återgivningar tycks vara överens om är att McLuhan menade att mediet är viktigt också i relation till budskapet. Men var det verkligen bara det McLuhan ville ha sagt?
Svårigheten att förklara McLuhans uttryck hänger till stor del samman med hans egen hans egen ofta kryptiska formuleringskonst. Själv hävdade han han skrev med den högra hjärnhalvan, medan de flesta begreppsmässigt orienterade människor använder sig mer eller mindre uteslutande av den vänstra: "I use the right hemisphere a great deal which is a world of perception, not concepts."
Hans yttrande i Understanding Media (Media i svensk översättning) där "the media is the message" introduceras utgör inget undantag från denna regel:
The media is the message. That is merely to say that the personal and social consequences of any medium...result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves or by any new technology.
En längre och något mer klargörande diskussion möter oss i det föredrag McLuhan höll vid Florida State University 1970:
The car has lost its place in the heart of the people. That doesn't mean it's going to disappear overnight. Not at all. All it means is the effects of the car are disappearing. And privacy and service environment are part of the effects. When I say the medium is the message, I'm saying that the motor car is not a medium. The medium is the highway, the factories, and the oil companies. That is the medium. In other words, the medium of the car is the effects of the car. When you pull the effects away, the meaning of the car is gone. The car as an engineering object has nothing to do with these effects. The car is a figure in a ground of services. It's when you change the ground that you change the car. The car does not operate as the medium, but rather as one of the major effects of the medium.
So the medium is the message is not a simple remark, and I've always hesitated to explain it. It really means a hidden environment of services created by an innovation. And the hidden environment of services is the thing that changes people. It is the environment that changes people, not the technology.
Marshall McLuhan: Lecture, Florida State, 1970
För McLuhan är således budskapet identiskt med mediets effekter uppfattade i dess vidaste mening. Boktryckarkonsten och den mekanisering av samhället som den medförde hade som budskap "fragmentering centralisering och ytlighet," egenskaper som i någon mening är inneboende i detta media. Automatiseringen - eller digitaliseringen som vi skulle säga - leder på omvänt sätt till "enhet, decentralisering och djup." Dessa kvaliteter är - om vi får tro McLuhan - att betrakta som identiska med detta medias "budskap."
McLuhan tycks mena att ett dominerande medias funktionssätt påverkar människan och samhället i vida högre grad än den information som sprids med dess hjälp. Eftersom samhället strukturerar sig kring mediet kommer detta att ge upphov till en miljö som i sin tur bidrar till att forma människorna, deras personliga liv och tänkande. I jämförelse med dessa effekter har det förmedlade innehållet försvinnande liten betydelse.
Genom att fokusera på mediets "innehållet," löper vi enligt McLuhan risk att förlora dessa mer långtgående effekter och mediets inneboende tendens ur sikte. För att få oss att se mediet i dess rena, effektskapande och samhällsomdanande materialitet, väljer han därför att med ett retoriskt konstgrepp sätta likhetstecken mellan mediet och budskapet (ett begrepp som traditionellt snarare förknippats med det förmedlade innehållet). Eftersom innehållet inte spelar någon roll i det längre perspektivet är det mediet självt som utgör budskapet, the media is the message.
Åter till NYA MEDIA - INTRODUKTION
Om ni söker på uttrycket "the media is the message" på webben finner ni att svenska sajter kraftigt överrepresenterade.
McLuhan's slogans "The medium is the message" and "The global village" are recited like mantras in every digital atelier in the world, despite the fact that hardly anyone who quotes McLuhan reads his books.
"The Medium Is the Massage, a slim volume published in 1967, was McLuhan's only best-seller. He wrote the title, Jerome Agel collected the McLuhanisms, and Quentin Fiore created the design, combining word and image in a way that transformed our notions of what a book "should" be.
Wired's intro pages are direct descendants of The Medium Is the Massage; in fact, the introduction to Wired's premiere issue quotes the book's opening paragraph. "
Why are you difficult to understand Prof. McLuhan?
Tom Snyder:
Forgive my impertinence, but has anybody asked you why you are sometimes
difficult to understand? McLuhan: Because I use the right hemisphere when they're trying
to use the left hemisphere.
Snyder: Okay well.
McLuhan: Simple. You see, when, ordinary people are trained to try to follow you and to connect everything you say with what they last heard, they're not prepared to use their wits. They're only prepared to use the idea they picked the first time and try to connect it to another idea. So if you're in a situation that is flexible, where you have to use you're wits and perceptions, they can't follow you. They have preconceptions that phase them out at once. You see that's left hemisphere. But I use the right hemisphere a great deal which is a world of perception, not concepts.
Interview (1976)