Excerpts from Understanding Media, The Extensions of Man -- Marshall McLuhan

Article here.

McLuhan suggests that “the medium is the message because it is the medium that shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and action.” I loosely grasp this, mostly because I view it as how we can't undervalue the importance of how we receive the message. McLuhan would roll his eyes at me, though. I'm not quite there.

He says that content and medium are the same thing. This makes more sense to me through a professional lens where, in marketing/communications, the focus is typically on the what of the message. However, the medium of the message -- web, email, phone call, tv ad, print ad, etc. -- determines the human association and action. Inextricably linked within those media are certain values and notions. If I'm trying to sell you a product, would I send you an email? If data points to the fact that customers are less trustful of email marketing, and are more inclined to look favorably at products that well-known bloggers promote, wouldn't I choose to develop a relationship with a blogger? This "trustworthy medium" is the message.

McLuhan would likely tell me that I'm way off still, much like other analyses of media. I'm not detached enough to determine the social effects of media content since the spell, as he puts it, can occur immediately upon contact. Could he find someone who hasn't been put under the spell? Could anyone really be completely detached from society and able to distinguish the effects of media technologies from their messages? I doubt I'm a good candidate.