The medium is the message
by Marshall McLuhan · first published 1967
24% recommend76% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Argues that the form of a technology shapes society more than its content, offering a lens that changes how tools and media are seen. Suited to readers who think of technology as just a neutral tool.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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…It's a marketing channel for brands and a low friction communication channel for normals. Wave wasn't built for normals. Google doesn't 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...…
on “Ask HN: Why did Twitter succeed?” ↗…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 him out. Understanding Media -- Seminal work, he lays out the medium is the…
on “Marshall McLuhan: The Playboy Interview (1969)” ↗Whenever I see someone saying something like "just a tool" with regard to technology, I always want to recommend a thorough read of Marshall McLuhan's "Understanding Media" ("The Medium is the Message" and other adages). I think you've got it precisely the wrong way round: it is not the morality of the times that is reflected by the use of technology, but morality that reflects current technology.…
on “A Dark Consensus About Screens and Kids Begins to Emerge in Silicon Valley” ↗Are you familiar with Marshall Mcluhan and his "The Medium is the Message" ideas? They would interest you.
on “Always bet on text” ↗You might be interested in the works of Marshall McLuhan, specifically The Medium is the Message. >McLuhan understood "medium" in a broad sense. He identified the light bulb as a clear demonstration of the concept of “the medium is the message”. A light bulb does not have content in the way that…
on “What's It Like to Live Without Electricity? Ask an Indian Villager” ↗…modalities (symbols, icons, text, pictures, sound, video, data, ...), search, association, fungibility (modifiability / rewritability of content), and more. That's the basic message of Marshall McLuhan (The Medium is the Message and Gutenberg's Galaxy), of Elisabeth Eisenstein (The Printing Press as an Agent of Change), and others.
on “Ask HN: How do we stop the polarization/toxicicity filling the web?” ↗…technological problem. It's a social one. The notion that it's a monocausal issue of social policy has been addressed thoroughly for decades by luminaries such as Marhsall McLuhan and Jacques Ellul. The Medium is the Message. For a more up to date take, I strongly recommend that you read Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves To Death. --- [1] https://www.advocate.com/media/2017/11/03/why-did-russia-pro... [2] https://youtu.be/Y5ubluwNkqg?t=126…
on “Technorealism, Alvin Toffler, and the Forgotten Third Wave” ↗…feel so dramatic after a cooldown period. My working theory on why Twitter is so noxious is that it captures (then broadcasts) people's impulsiveness reaction. I keep thinking of Marshal McLuhan's The Medium is the Message. What would he say about Twitter? I've never grokked McLuhan's distinction between "hot" and "cold" mediums. (Makes sense; being one of the first to discuss this stuff, he had to invent a vocabulary.)…
on “Being Ridiculed for My Open Source Project (2013)” ↗…own identity becomes tied to it, whether you realize it or not, and you'll keep pushing for it and maybe even ignore facts that challenge the success of your investment. #2: Marshall McLuhan (of "The Medium is the Message" fame) argues that we need to understand communication and entertainment technologies in terms of the structure they impose on us. While social media is seen as a societal ill by many, its original idea…
on “'AI Mania Is Eviscerating Global Decision-Making'” ↗I haven't read McLuhan and have no opinion on his work. But from the article you linked to, the original phrase was "the medium is the 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…
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]” ↗After reading this master plan yesterday, I came to work today thinking along the same lines. I feel like Musk's actions are a great example of McLuhan's "The Medium is the Message". Tesla is not a car company. They're doing cars because it's a way into their actual business. He wants them to invest in solar power because it's another way that ties into a general plan.
on “Master Plan, Part Deux” ↗I felt I was getting pretentious there... maybe I should extend that idea out, something like McLuhan's The Medium is the Message.
on “My 20-Year Experience of Software Development Methodologies” ↗I think this goes back philosophically to the theories of Marshall McLuhan, specifically The Medium is the Message. Take for example, YouTube. And I do me YouTube, not video. YouTube isn't video. Video doesn't allow annotations (although those are thankfully going away), or referencing other videos, or references…
on “HyperNormalisation by Adam Curtis (2016) [video]” ↗McLuhan speaks in exaggerated language - it's important to not take everything he says too literally, and to instead judge the essence of the ideas. "The Medium is the Message" because without context (the media), messages are just noise. McLuhan was all about seeing the contexts we live in, how they shape our reality, etc.
on “This is Marshall McLuhan: The Medium is the Message (1967) [video]” ↗