The Medium is the Massage

A must read for all who create and digest media. More than ever today, we let Media Massage us, and now with always on, social media, AI this book should help you take a minute to reassess, how we all like to be massaged, and our will dissipates and we are just getting massaged into information sponges.

In the 1960s, McLuhan presaged the communications age through his studies of “electronic media.” His thoughts shone light on the way forward and are now standards of understanding today. For instance, he coined the term “global village” in showing the ways of globalization. This work consists of much more than text. Published in black-and-white, it portrays a series of images that move the reader through the contention that media – particularly electronic media – “massages” messages to us. McLuhan squarely places the focus on the nature of the media. He looks to history to see how Gutenberg transformed the world through the advent of print media. He contends that television, movies, and other pictorial media begun the transform the world in the 1950s and 1960s. It made the world a smaller place, a global village, where people in far-flung places of the world borrow and learn from each other. To him, electronic media are non-linear, unlike books. Rather, they unite thought and action in a way that books do not. This allows fields like psychology to flourish as instant reactions become more important. In its production, each page is adorned with images that reinforce McLuhan’s message. While such things are commonplace over fifty years later, this type of presentation was pioneered in these works. We can now observe through studying contemporary discourse that this work was spot-on in its predictions. For me, as a software developer and student of culture, this work simply reinforces what I see around me. I spend a lot of my time on the computer and Internet. I see first-hand that McLuhan’s theses worked out. Still, I found this image-oriented book very stimulating. All of the poignant pictures tired out my eyes. It reminded me of the electronic media that are now standard, like the electronic news or even Facebook and Instagram. This work continues to inform the intellectual class and students of culture. Those interested in the history of ideas will be particularly attracted to this work. Those, like me, who are concerned with the role of computers in society will find this work compelling. As commonly said, we live in the Information Age, and this book sketched the outlines, fifty-plus years ago, of what that would look like. Many say that it is the most mature expression of McLuhan’s thought. For that reason, it’s worth attending to his perspective today.

I... I thought this was going to arrive in full size... It's a little bit smaller then your average book. But I can't complain because it looks like it was made yesterday. Some old school books you buy and they're hard to read the print or make out the pictures. Not this one. Both the print and visuals are clear. No smudges, no printing errors, and... It's well put together like it was just made.

If I were a superior intellect obsessed with the effects of media who happened to indulge in mind-altering drugs and who enjoyed emulating the style of poetry slams, I might be able to create a work comparable to Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore's "The Medium is the Massage". Or at least I might have been able to enjoy it. Alas, none of the aforementioned qualities apply to me. And given the popularity of this book in academia, my intellect is apparently lower than even my nearly non-existent desire to attend a poetry slam. Clearly, I am not the intended audience. Who, then, is this book suited for? The answer to that is best given after taking a few moments to examine what the book is about and how it is presented. We must understand both what it is about and how it goes about being--and isn't being what it is (whatever it is) all about? (If that last sentence elicited a, "whoahhh...heavy dude..." response from you, you may be a part of the book's intended audience.) Let me start with how it is presented since you must be able to tolerate its appearance and taste if you are to consume its contents and benefit from the nutrition contained within. Consider the following excerpt: "Ours is a brand-new world of allatonceness. `Time' has ceased, `space' has vanished. We now live in a global village...a simultaneous happening. We are back in acoustic space. We have begun again to structure the primordial feeling, the tribal emotions.... (63)" I can imagine McLuhan on stage, wearing a beret, smoking a cigarette, holding a glass of pinot noir and speaking melodramatically into a microphone to a crowd of wine and coffee sippers. They applaud while I scratch my head and pray this place has tequila and transcripts of the show. That is not to say that the style of writing is bad. But it can become dissonance that obscures the message it is trying to convey. I would not dispute that Shakespeare's sonnets are poetic masterpieces, but if you try to use that style to educate me on the effects of mass media on society, I will likely become bewildered and remain uneducated. People who enjoy his sonnets, however, may be enthralled. The visual elements add the equivalent of more than four shots of espresso's worth of caffeine to the book and make it feel hyperactive and almost psychedelic. Black and white pictures are on nearly every page. The text varies in size from tiny to one letter being as tall as the page. Sentences may be black or white, upside down, diagonal or backwards. One page may have several paragraphs followed by one sentence that spans multiple pages. It is possible that his style is simply too rich and cultured for my peasant-born palate (or that it is meant to be read while listening to Pink Floyd and dropping acid--I did not try that approach, though). After all, many disagree with me. In his 2004 article "A Media Ecology Review", (Communication Research Trends: Vol. 23, No. 2, p.7), Lance Straite discusses how other works by McLuhan are "challenging" because of his writing style. However, he says that "The Medium is the Massage" is, "effective because it summarizes McLuhan's key concepts and shows as well as tells the reader what McLuhan is referring to... [and] remains a good introduction to McLuhan's approach." Those "key concepts" constitute the book's intellectual nutritional value--and there is a lot for your brain to absorb. While I found the style off-putting, I choked it down like a heaping bowl of spinach and beets (they're good for you!) and, after processing it, appreciate the book's content. The depth of the book is conveyed in the title. According to McLuhan's official website (maintained by his family), "The Medium is the Massage" was originally supposed to be "The Medium is the Message". When McLuhan saw the error, he told the printer to, "leave it alone! It's great and right on target!" McLuhan apparently loved wordplay (as can be seen in the book) and thought "massage" could be read in four different--yet relevant--ways: "message", "massage", "mess age" and "mass age". The core concept of the book is how the technology of media--the physical, sensual being of it, not the content it delivers--"massages" our behavior; how it pushes and pulls us. McLuhan is not concerned with what we see and hear when we watch T.V., listen to the radio or see a billboard but rather how the media--the channels by which the content is delivered--affect us. Few things illustrate this better than one concept he famously coined: "the global village". In her 2008 article "Understanding the Implications of a Global Village" (Reason and Respect: Vol. 4, Iss. 1, p.1), Violet Dixon wrote that McLuhan used the term to, "describe the phenomenon of the world's culture shrinking and expanding at the same time due to pervasive technological advances that allow for instantaneous sharing of culture." McLuhan explores how changes in media have impacted how we act when we are alone, how we interact with our family, neighbors, people far away, schools, the government and more. He examines media as an almost biological extension of ourselves and why that matters. So who is this book for? This is a 5-Star book for readers who are hungry to explore the impact that the tools of media-content delivery have on society and find the presentation and style enjoyable. For such readers, the book is a buffet of intellectual delicacies. The concepts will fill your intellectual belly while leaving you eager to digest it so you can come back for more. It is a 4-Star book for students (and professors) of disciplines for whom understanding the role of mass media is important but for whom the greater motivator for attaining that understanding is to satisfy a requirement and less one that is born of passion for the topic. These particular readers are also not turned off by the style and do not struggle too much with the material. It is a 3-Star book for students like those above but who may struggle with the presentation and taste and may have to choke it down. However, digesting it can greatly strengthen their understanding of mass media. Class discussions and supplemental reading materials may be of great value to them.

A very thought-provoking book indeed... I'm taking a class on History of Media and Communication, and we're using this as part of our course materials. McLuhan presents to his readers a fascinating way to rethink how media has changed our lives, society and the way humans perceive our world. His argument about visuality is very compelling (shocking at first glance too, but he gives his reasons), and his analysis on the shift of our society is equally intriguing. This graphic novel (another refreshing way to present argument about media) is quite a collectible to those who wish to understand more about media and communication, as McLuhan is certainly one of the theorists you can't miss! Here are some quotes I've taken from the book; great food for thought... "Societies have always been shaped more by the nature of the media by which men communicate than by the content of the communication." "Until writing was invented, men lived in acoustic space: boundless, directionless, horizonless... [writing] was the basic metaphor with which the cycle of civilization began, the step from the dark into the light of the mind." "'Time' has ceased, 'space' has vanished. We now live in a global village... a simultaneously happening." "Many people find it difficult to understand purely verbal concepts... In general we feel more secure when things are visible, when we can "see for ourselves"."

I thought this book was "Understanding Media". Simply mistaken identity. The Ideas expressed in this book are not well described. It is a very entertaining book although. The book contains pictures on every other page. The pictures are very relevant and mind-provoking. It was a very quick read. Most pages are not filled all the way with text. The text also varies between large and regular sized prints. My anticipation with held as I flipped each page. I expected to get a better understanding of media. It seemed as though the book only tells the reader that media effects us in more ways than most assume. If you know this, dont buy the book. I was informed that media effects us in mostly negative ways before reading this book and was hoping to get a better explanation. I still recommend buying this book over most others. Almost as good as I expected.

One of the great piece of feedback I got from my boss (and independently from our COO) was that while I am close enough to technology and design I am not really in the advertising and marketing business. Two weeks ago at the Forrester Consumer Forum I cornered a traveling bard of the advertising industry: Shane. Just Shane. I managed to pick over his almost photographic memory for books that would help ground me in the business. The first book I read on my quest to get closer to the advertising business was "The medium is the massage" by Marshall McLuhan. O ... M ... G This book was written in 1967 and sounds like it was written this year. McLuhan's vision for the future and linkage to the change from a mechanistic society to an information society is still directly relevant. As we move from an information society into a conceptual society, his message still resonates. Why have I not heard of this book before? Why did I not read this in university? Why has this been hidden from me, despite my design reading and exploration of the fields of visualization, visual thinking, creativity, and problem solving? Oh yeah, because none of those things are in advertising. Some of my favorite quotes (several incredibly apropos of this particular time and space): Politics will eventually be replaced by imagery. The politician will be only too happy to abdicate in favor of his image, because the image will be much more powerful than he could ever be. The core message from the book can be boiled down into the following: The past went that-a-way. When faced with a totally new situation, we tend always to attach ourselves to the objects, to the flavor of the most recent past. We look at the present through a rear view mirror. We march backwards into the future. And of course: The medium is the message. This is merely to say that the personal and social consequences of any medium / that is, of any extension of ourselves / result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or by any new technology. Get this book. Read this book. Re-read this book imagining yourself (or like me your parents) in 1967. Think about it. (re-posted from [...]

This book is a work of art as well as cultural commentary. The words are prophetic and penetrating. The book imagery and designs are a delight to anyone who likes the esthetics of futuristic 60s and 70s art.

Pour mes recherches en sciences sociales et politiques

Marshall McLuhan is a deductive. Thinker, which is Unusual , he and Northrop Frye arguably the most influential literary critic in the 20 th century were both contemporaries at the University of Manitoba. In the Medium is the Massge McLuhan practised what he preached. Still few people understand but the will.

The excellent quality of this book is surpassed only by its author, Marshall McLuhan.

Been looking for it for so long, love the book absolutely love it

I love the books by Paul Arden - eg It's Not How Good You Are, It's How Good You Want To Be and especialy Marty Neumeier - eg Zag: The Number One Strategy of High-performance Brands . I bought this on a recommendation from a designer friend and it doesn't disappoint. Hard to imagine this was written in the 60's - even before digital watches. The terminology is interestingly prophetic - eg Electronic Media - meaning telephones, faxes, radio, satellite tv and print. It's a strange book, worth reading in context of when it was written.