Marshall McLuhan’s The Medium is the Message is a strong testament to Jean Baudrillard’s idea of the simulacra. Can we think of a world in which media does not simply control people, but alter the perceptions of their environment? McLuhan provides several examples of technology to help us understand our bodies as they react to different types of stimuli. In such a case, McLuhan would think that with the interconnectivity of information technology systems as well as the power of electricity, these types of mediums would become intertwined in the near future. This interconnectivity of the psychic and social effects of ever-present mediums affect us in the same way that words might affect us. Mechanization, in this way, would allow for the birth of interpretations en masse. In such a way, the narrative of many articles would seemingly change, with new avenues for a similar message to be sought after.
In my response, I find this observation unique, as it would explain the various literatures quoted in the work. The extent to which McLuhan is able to dignify the response of the technologically ‘literate’ and technologically ‘illiterate’ citizen speaks bounds to the world in which we live in. The same concepts of the minority and model citizens allow for the narratives of different mediums to sometimes be misconstrued as they all have power in representation. The medium helps affect this sense of presentation as they can directly influence or control those who come in contact with it. This is not a very hopeful message, but I believe it to be a useful perspective – one that we should keep in mind when thinking of how we interact with others.