Medium Ultimately Shapes The Message
- Artel Richard
- Jul 12, 2018
- 3 min read
Updated: Jan 22, 2019
“The medium is the message," said Marshall McLuhan in his book, The Medium is The Massage back in the 1960's. Ever since, writers, teachers, students, researchers and regular people have tried to interpret what that quote was really implying. Medium nowadays is anything from the traditional newspapers to movies, social media applications, websites and graphic novels. Some medium can let audience feel a specific atmosphere relating to the message with the use of visuals or sound while some lets the reader play out the message or the story with their imagination. In this blog article, I am going to talk about how the medium ultimately shapes and supports the message.
"The medium is the message"
Medium effects our imagination and interpretation of the message. When reading books or articles with only text, our imagination can only go so far, and is also different from person to person. But with the use of different mediums, the author can chose to include visuals that will tunnel the audience’s interpretation of the message in the specific way that the author wanted the audience to perceive in. For example, in the book, the Secret Path by Gordon Downie, there are mostly images and rarely any words other than the text pages. The book has a strong use of the code and conventions of comics. It uses dark and cold colours to dramatize and enforce Chanie’s sad mood, along with the dark atmosphere. The panels are shaped and sized depending on the detail and object that is in the panel. If the Secret Path was a novel with only texts, I do not think that I would be feeling the same atmosphere as the graphic novel version of the book due to the effective use of the graphical advantages that a graphic novel has.
If the Secret Path was a novel with only texts, I do not think that I would be feeling the same atmosphere
The medium can also shape the interpretation of the message with the use of sound. Along with mediums affecting the message visually, mediums that use sound like videos, songs, TV and announcements can affect the message also. After I read the Secret path, I watched the cartoon version of it with the songs by Gordon Downie.The playing of the ambient melody and the lyrics combined with the cartoon simultaneously shaped the original book into a whole different feeling. When I read the book, because of the setting of the book, I was imagining silence throughout the whole story. But watching the cartoon with sound gave the story a different mood than the book. The codes of songs would be the melody, instruments and lyrics. The ghostly feeling of the book no longer existed, but I could feel the pain and emotions of Chanie Wenjack more because of the different melodies and the lyrics.
The medium and the message are like pizza dough and its toppings. They are equally important
The medium can have different psychological effects. “It means that the way that we send and receive information is more important than the information itself.” (Eudaimonia, 2016). With the introduction to many new mediums, not just newspapers and books, the author or creator has a wide variety of choices to present the message in. The choice can affect how engaged and focused the audience can be. The engagement can also have an effect on the interpretation of the message because if people are more interested in a certain kind of medium more than another, they will be more focused and receive the message, whereas if the audience wasn’t interested, they might miss the message of the main point of the author. The medium and the message are like pizza dough and its toppings. They are equally important, because without the dough, the toppings have no purpose and vice versa.
Therefore, the medium ultimately shapes and supports the message. It does it in so many different ways, and there are so many different ways to interpret different mediums. But one thing is clear, and it is that the medium is more than just a genre or type of presentation. The medium itself can have as much of an impact as the message on the audience. Different mediums have unique and various characteristics that portray the message in different ways. “Each one of these channels, or media, has its own unique characteristics, much like the people who use them.” (Gross, 2011).
Works Cited
Eudaimonia. “The Medium Is the Message by Marshall McLuhan – Eudaimonia – Medium.” Medium, Augmenting Humanity, 7 Dec. 2016, medium.com/@obtaineudaimonia/the-medium-is-the-message-by-marshall-mcluhan-8b5d0a9d426b.
“The Medium Is The Message.” Smashing Magazine, 4 July 2011, www.smashingmagazine.com/2011/07/the-medium-is-the-message/.
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