The Medium And Its Impact On The Society Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

The Medium And Its Impact On The Society - Essay Example There are a lot of serious defenders and critics of McLuhan’s ideas, and, in my opinion, all of them are right to a greater or lesser extent, although, after my reading of McLuhan’s works and of some discussions around it, I should confess that I could agree with his aphorism: â€Å"The Medium Is the Message†. In this essay, I give several points to explain my opinion. First of all, I would not adjoin those people who understand the meaning of the McLuhan’s work too literally, focusing mostly on the conventional significance of term â€Å"medium† in relation to mass-media communications and the meaning of â€Å"message† only as information. Such understanding, in my opinion, leads to misapprehension or, at least, to a superficial comprehension of McLuhan’s ideas – it does not allow to go beyond simple conclusions that communication technologies are more important (in some miraculous way) than information or content, which technologies transmit, and hence information can be disregarded. In this sense I agree with McLuhan who expresses his harsh opinion as follows: I consider, that according to McLuhan, the â€Å"media† should be understood in more broad, complex meaning – as â€Å"extension of man†, as any phenomenon (social or technological) that can cause structural changes influencing man’s mode of existence. Fishman (2006) also emphasizes that McLuhan treats media as â€Å"extensions of an individuals capabilities and attributes †¦ [and] extension of the mind. These media create perceptual environments, and these environments influence what kind of facts are privileged as important, and what type of stimuli are ignored or overlooked† (p.2). McLuhan (2003) corroborates it: All human inventions, innovations, and ideas are media, according to McLuhan.