“The medium is message.” Whatever content we see today is the specific outcome of being spread through certain medium. In other words, medium plays a decisive role in presenting content. Therefore, what really matters is the medium itself, which represents times characteristics in a sense, rather than the informative, so-called representative content.
This really makes sense, especially in our current information era. With the rapid development of media, people’s living styles and thinking patterns have changed a lot. Nowadays, almost everyone receives message through internet, which is surely the most universal medium at present. However, it is because internet makes it possible to spread so much content to so many receivers that content itself becomes not such important any longer. Instead, from a historical perspective, it is Internet, the currently popular medium, that dramatically differs our era from the past, which is exactly the most influential message ever so far.
Similarly, in the era that printing was first invented, content was not at all important as it seemed to be. Rather, the exact message expressed by printing was that people was already aware of spreading knowledge, which then laid a transformative foundation for the later thought collision among areas and even cultures. In fact, different media accordingly mirror the characteristics of each period of time.
Therefore, every time a new medium emerges, no matter what content it spreads, itself has already meant a historic transform.
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