Today was illuminating. After reading Mark Federman’s explanation of Marshall McLuhan’s concept, I thought I had the whole medium-message paradigm down.
- Every conveyed idea is shared through a medium
- How and where ideas are expressed – spoken language, written language, digital mediums, landscapes, buildings – has an impact on the idea. This isn’t always apparent but ALWAYS happens.
- Thus, the medium alters/adds to the meaning of the message (i.e. IS the message).
Big business, power-handshakefulness dudes are always banging on about how ‘non-verbal’ communication is the key to using (and abusing) the medium of oneself to deliver a message. Not a new concept, right?
Yet with every innovation – Wikipedia, Twitter, Uber – relationships between content creators, audiences, institutions and technologies change. Just because you’re not there shaking hands doesn’t mean you can’t shape what that handshake means.
The medium is the message because it gives the masses the power to change it, and therefore society.
Why reference the somewhat outdated Joey? Because, like McLuhan’s ancient yet modern concept, it’s not what you said, it’s the way you said it.
Liv-ing 
You’ve brought up an extremely valid point that i have not yet read in any other blog posts concerning “The medium is the message”. I can definitely see how the use of non- verbal communication within the corporate world can be considered when expanding upon McLuhan’s idea. Perhaps to improve upon what is an already worthy integration of this weeks topic, you could add to it, examples of non – verbal communication and perhaps an case study into one specific type of non- verbal communication and how this has impacted upon the proceeding message.
Was a good read 🙂
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Cheers. I wish I could’ve gone into more depth, bloody word-count. Check out my super informative links 😉
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I liked that your rundown of the medium is the message was clear and precise, it really helped me understand it that little bit more. I found your example of the power handshake very interesting and I can definitely see how like you pointed out that society is changing how handshakes are viewed because I think society can basically do that to anything these days. People interpret things how they want them to be and I think that’s obvious with the points that you made. Especially since Non-verbal communication leaves the message open.
T’was a lovely read!
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Thanks Louise!
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