Blog Post #4: The Medium and the Message by Stella Aisenshtat

As communication studies students, I'm sure many of us are familiar with the phrase: "The medium is the message", coined by mass media theorist Marshall McLuhan in the 1960s. What does that mean though? In essence, the representations of certain messages differ across various mediums as they all have a range of different affordances and biases that impact the way in which we receive information and what that information is, fundamentally changing our understanding of our world and ourselves. Think of film adaptations, for example. So many people critique films when they are adapted from novels, in part due to a lack of fidelity to the original text, but also due to the fact that the medium of film inherently transforms the message of the book. Through written language, an author can create boundless worlds and has a means to describe virtually anything by relying heavily on the reader's imagination. A film, however, employs cinematography rather than literary devices, and some would argue even inhibits the viewers' imagination by doing all the visual representations for them. While an author might use metaphors and similes to convey a certain meaning, a director would use camera angles, lighting, even a soundtrack. The meaning would remain the same, but the message that delivers it would be transformed by the medium in which it is contained.
This can apply to social media just as well. An example that comes to mind are Twitter threads and Tiktok videos. Both can have multiple collaborators, focus on similar topics and deliver similar meanings, but both have dramatically different affordances that dictate how and in what form the message will be conveyed. 
Can you think of any examples you've seen online of how different social media platforms have transformed a certain message? 

Comments

  1. PoojaNovember 22, 2022 at 7:52 PM

    Hi,

    Great discussion! I thought that your example of film adaptions was a great way to reflect the medium as a message. It is true that depending on which social media platform information is being delivered, the meaning may change due to the platform’s affordance. I think that, therefore, people choose to view content on some platforms instead of others. It offers people what fits best to them, even if the information is substantially the same.

    Do you notice how your experience of information changes on different social media? If so, what is the most prominent?

    Thanks,
    Pooja

    ReplyDelete
  2. Alicia MaxDecember 2, 2022 at 12:23 PM

    Hi! Great post, I really like your application of McLuhan's the medium is the message to film and social media. I never thought of the difference between film and novels in relation to McLuhan, great job. When examining how this may apply to social media a platform that came to mind is Tinder. In this sense, different users looking for different relationships convey a difference in the message while it is the same medium. Through different interactions on Tinder, users may also develop a different connection with the platform based on the message they've received.

    ReplyDelete

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