Marshall McLuhan:

The Medium is the Message – a good theorist to quote in your exam.

“Societies have always been shaped more by the nature of the media by which men communicate than by the content of the communication” 

(p. 8: 1967)

Marshall McLuhan: The Medium is the Message: A way of understanding ‘technological determinism‘ the idea that it is the tool that shapes us, rather than us who shape the tool.

For many the role of technology is actually the most defining aspect of Media, for example Marshall McLuhan proposed in 1964 that the Medium was the message, or as he deliberately titled his book ‘The Media is the Massage’.  In other words, the medium (the technology) is more significant than anything else in determining meaning ie over companies, organisations, governments, individuals, representations, texts etc etc

Key Words associated with New Media – complete table with examples or notes below each key term.

	share	active	creative	host
example or comment
	story 	re-connect	personalise	stream
example or comment
	experience	store	scale	immerse
example or comment
	interface	live	adapt	binge
example or comment
	conversation	re-perform	circulate	endless 
example or comment

Table to contrast ‘New’ vs ‘Old’ Media: Do you agree? Copy this table into your own blog and fill in the blank column

NEW MEDIA	OLD MEDIA	COMMENT OR EXAMPLE
Active involvement 	Passive involvement 
Two-way conversation	One-way conversation
Open system	Closed system
Transparent	Opaque
One-on-one marketing	Mass marketing
About Me	About You
Brand and User-generated Content	Professional content
Authentic content	Polished content
FREE platform	Paid platform
Metric: Engagement	Metric: Reach/ frequency
Actors: Users / Influencers	Actors/ Celebrities
Community decision-making	Economic decision-making
Unstructured communication	Controlled communication
Real time creation	Pre-produced/ scheduled
Bottom-up strategy	Top-down strategy
Informal language	Formal language