McLuhan’s message always tells us to look beyond the obvious.

By Paul Balles

WHEN Marshall McLuhan’s Understanding Media was published in 1964, it provoked rave reviews and infuriated rage.

W Terence Gordon noted: “In the 1960s McLuhan’s theories aroused both wrath and admiration. Today few would dispute that mass media have indeed decentralized modern living and turned the world into a global village.”

According to McLuhan, a medium is any extension of ourselves. A hammer extends our arm and the wheel extends our legs and feet. Each enables us to do more than our bodies could do on their own.

Similarly, the medium of language extends our thoughts from within our mind to others.

“It is only too typical,” wrote McLuhan, “that the ‘content’ of any medium blinds us to the character of the medium.”

The invention of the Gutenberg Press changed the scale of information available to the world.

Books became available to the masses. In the following years, literacy jumped from almost zero as many learned to read and then write.

That led to the ability to write letters, meaning those who could write no longer had to depend on travel and personal visits to communicate.

It’s not the content or use of the print media, but the change in inter-personal dynamics that innovation brings with it.

Consider other innovations in media and their effect.

Mark Federman observes: “A theatrical production is not the musical or the play being produced, but perhaps the change in tourism that the production may encourage.

“In the case of a specific theatrical production, its message may be a change in attitude or action on the part of the audience that results from the medium of the play itself, which is quite distinct from the medium of theatrical production in general.

“Similarly, the messages of a newscast are not the news stories themselves, but a change in the public attitude towards crime, or the creation of a climate of fear. M McLuhan’s message always tells us to look beyond the obvious.”

The advent of reporting and writing for newspapers and magazines made news and ideas more widely available than did the printing of books.

At the time these changes were taking place, few people looked ahead and anticipated how the new media would change the way people lived and learned.

Hindsight reveals that the introduction of TV had even broader than anticipated consequences on the way we live.

Suddenly, we were watching the world go by instead of reading about it and imagining its appearance.

The Internet seduced millions away from hours in front of TV screens to computers, from programmes fed by TV networks to personally chosen information sources and time spent online.

But before we could catch our breath from the Internet’s web of information sources, we are now experiencing the incredible effects of social networking.

Television is no contest for Twitter and Facebook, which do not come under the same levels of control as mainstream media.

Social media has also reduced the time people give to old reading habits.

Meanwhile, we now have no time for long political rants. Election campaigns are now organized and promoted through social networks.

People are no longer passive viewers, but have become broadcasters by uploading their own images and videos to get their message to the online world.

The irony is that recognized TV networks now find themselves playing catch-up and when they do carry the story, they often do so badly.

Hear Prof. McLuhan from ’60s’ in this short clip:

Paul J. Balles is a retired American university professor and freelance writer who has lived in the Middle East for many years. He’s a weekly Op-Ed columnist for the GULF DAILY NEWS . Dr. Balles is also Editorial Consultant for Red House Marketing and a regular contributor to Bahrain This Month.