This reading, “The Medium is the Message” by Marshall McLuhan, ties into some ideas I discussed in my previous post on the Machine in E.M. Forster’s “The Machine Stops.”
The Machine is really just an extreme example of what McLuhan describes as media or the medium. There are “personal and social consequences of any medium” by “any new technology” (151). The technology of the Machine became an extension of the inhabitants, to the point where it was nearly impossible to live without it. This relationship between the individual and the medium is the source of these personal and social consequences, not necessarily the content of the Machine. Whether Vashti watched lectures or took baths did not matter: the content of her lifeāthe result of the mediumādid not matter. Focusing solely on the content of the medium obscures the whole context of the project itself.
This can be seen when comparing movies and video games. They are two different types of media. While their content can be the same (i.e. the “concrete” message they deliver to the audience,) the medium itself matters. Within a video game, you have more interactivity and choice than you would in a movie. These two things can change both the effect of the content and maybe even change the content itself. Basically, the medium is just as important, if not moreso, than the content of a project.