Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man

Exploring the relationship between media and society, it argues that the medium itself shapes human interactions and cultural structures, often overpowering content and leading to profound social consequences.

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Marshall McLuhan’s famous idea “the medium is the message,” in which he suggests that the medium through which content is communicated is just as significant, and sometimes more significant, than the content itself. He wrote this thesis in the 1960s, but it feels forever relevant.

elitism is the enemy of the people

Each medium, like language itself, makes possible a unique mode of discourse by providing a new orientation for thought, for expression, for sensibility.

Neil Postman • Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business

McLuhan’s core idea of media as “extensions of man” also contains a reversal: the extension of human faculties by media reverses the use of the body into non-use, or, in McLuhan’s words, leads to “numbness” and “amputation” of the organs or faculties that media extend.

elitism is the enemy of the people

Neil Postman • Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business

Andrey Mir • The Digital Reversal. Thread-saga of Media Evolution