The medium is the massage
an inventory of effects
by Marshall McLuhan · first published 1967
38% recommend62% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Short, image-heavy book on how media shape communication and society, praised for illuminating ideas about the global village and why the medium matters more than the message. Suited to readers new to media theory.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Pictorial presentation of the impact on contemporary society and individual man of the new developments in technology and communications media.
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Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
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Mcluhan's work would be right up your alley then. Medium is the Massage; Gutenberg Galaxy would be my top 2 recommendation given what you wrote.
on “Ask HN: 2018 Summer Reading List?” ↗…of his books, and written several papers on him and still don't quite get it, feel like there are layers of what he was talking about that I may never grasp. Entry McLuhan for anyone interested -- The Medium is the Massage, a picture book that originally was a misprint (The Medium is the Message, being the phrase he coined), but he liked it and kept it. Kind feels like reading it is a drug trip, but you start to figure…
on “Marshall McLuhan: The Playboy Interview (1969)” ↗The Medium is the Massage by Marshall McLuhan. https://www.amazon.com/Medium-Massage-Marshall-McLuhan/dp/15... He combines words and images in a style that inspired Wired magazine. The book is about the influence of technology…
on “Ask HN: Coffee table books” ↗…understand the existence of normals. I would suggest reading The Medium Is The Message by Marshal McLuhan. http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25955.The_Medium_is_the_M... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Medium_is_the_Massage http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25955.The_Medium_is_the_M... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Understanding_Media:_The_Extens...
on “Ask HN: Why did Twitter succeed?” ↗Or way older and much more eloquent (albeit less digestible) "Amusing Ourselves to Death" by Neil Postman. Or even older "The Medium Is the Massage" by Marshall McLuhan.
on “TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users” ↗…issue here is that McLuhan was absolutely right when describing how the medium actually transforms and filters the messages that are sent through it. It's worth reading "Understanding Media" (or "The Medium is the Massage") because one of his key points is that the apparent content of the messages being sent across a medium is a distraction for what's really going on (the societal change brought about by the medium itself).…
on “Instagram for non-believers” ↗…theory books."* 1. https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-149-on-medi... * Of course, I enjoyed the podcast episode so much that I did end up going on to read The Gutenberg Galaxy and The Medium Is the Massage [sic], and wholeheartedly recommend both.
on “Decentralised content moderation” ↗After listening to The Medium is the Massage, I thought he was prescient on several things, like everything happening in the now, more information means more patterns to discern, the global village and the ill effects of everyone getting into everyone's…
on “This is Marshall McLuhan: The Medium is the Message (1967) [video]” ↗For folks who don’t know, this is a great read and explores how we are connected and communicate is more important than what is communicated. Highly highly recommend. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Medium_Is_the_Massage The slightly alternative title is a play on words that was originally an error.
on “The teen mental illness epidemic is international (2023)” ↗See also The Medium is the Massage, a very illuminating book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Medium_Is_the_Massage https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-medium-is-the-massage-revis...
on “Yes, social media is a cause of the epidemic of teenage mental illness” ↗…primarily: 1. Maximize employment 2. Stable prices 3. Low interest rates These goals are no longer applicable in the new electic age of automation and ephemeralization. [1] Marshall McLuhan, The Medium is the Massage
on “Tech faces hour of reckoning as fundraising drops, layoffs rise” ↗UbuWeb has also collected interviews and other audio gems about/featuring McLuhan, including two tracks from the late 1960s Columbia Records' LP "The Medium is the Massage": https://www.ubu.com/sound/mcluhan.html And there's also a 1999 documentary film about McLuhan entitled "Out of Orbit: The Life and Times of Marshall McLuhan": https://ubu.com/film/mcluhan.html Years…
on “This is Marshall McLuhan: The Medium is the Message (1967) [video]” ↗…message" Your linked source also doesn't say anything about criticism of the phrase. "The title is a play on McLuhan's oft-quoted saying "The medium is the message"." "Why is the title of the book The Medium is the Massage and not The Medium is the Message? Actually, the title was a mistake. When the book came back from the typesetter's, it had on the cover 'Massage' as it still does. The title was supposed to have read…
on “I'm leaving the Internet for a year” ↗You're not the only one :) > McLuhan frequently punned on the word "message", changing it to "mass age", "mess age", and "massage"; a later book, The Medium Is the Massage was originally to be titled The Medium is the Message, but McLuhan preferred the new title, which is said to have been a printing error. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_medium_is_the_message
on “This is Marshall McLuhan: The Medium is the Massage (1967) [video]” ↗Uh... did you read the article you just linked? "McLuhan frequently punned on the word 'message', changing it to 'mass age', 'mess age", and 'massage'; a later book, The Medium Is the Massage was originally to be titled The Medium is the Message, but McLuhan preferred the new title, which is said to have been a printing error."
on “This is Marshall McLuhan: The Medium is the Massage (1967) [video]” ↗