Totes blogging, at the mome.

When you're reading this blog, or any other blog for that matter, I know what you must be thinking. You must be thinking about how blogging and online news has the potential to wholly replace newspapers. That blogs are intended to get the news out, to let people vent, to share music, or to pretty much share anything. You're thinking about how they are convenient, free, and interesting. But, on the other hand, they're extremely subjective and you feel bad for all those men and women loosing their jobs at the newspaper. And then you go on reading the latest post on PerezHilton.com.
Marshall McLuhan was interested in the fact that we "tend to focus on the obvious" (Federman, "What is the Meaning of The Medium is the Message?") when it comes to technologies. We may think about what the technology will replace and what are it's advantages and disadvantages, but we don't look very far into the "ground." Ground consists of the less obvious aspects of life that we do not notice when thinking about how technologies influence life. However, since we do not look deep enough into the footprint new technologies leave on our society, these technologies have "unanticipated consequences." Unfortunately, we are content in our shallow observations and happy with just paying attention to what we believe is the message of the program we are watching.
When McLuhan stated, "The medium is the message," he meant that the medium, which is any extension of ourselves, creates a change in the pattern of society, which is the message. The message is not simply what is in the content of a show or how one uses the technology, as one may think. McLuhan asks us to look past that shallow definition of message. However, these changes in out society are slow processes that we do not always notice until we look back on the introduction of the medium. However, McLuhan states that it is important to notice these consequences so that we can anticipate the change.
Knowing this, McLuhan’s theory is absolutely related to technological determinism. Although, McLuhan’s ideas both support and reject the idea of Technological Determinism, The technology, or the medium, determines the shape of society into the deepest facets of social, religious, cultural, and political life. It slowly changes societies norms, values, and thoughts. McLuhan writes in “Understanding Radio,” “That Hitler came into political existence at all is directly owing to radio.” Essentially, McLuhan is saying that Hilter’s political career was determined by radio. In this aspect, his ideas do support technological determinism.
On the other hand, McLuhan explains that, because society is always demanding more from technology, we, the consumers of media, also become the producers. It is a never-ending cycle because we will always want more and more and more from our technologies. Therefore, we will produce more and more and more. As the technology moves society forward, society moves technology forward.
It takes no stretch of the imagination to accept that many people are very confused about this statement, “the medium is the message.” Because of this, Mark Federman wrote, “What is the Meaning of the Medium is the Message” to help make this statement more clear. He explains what McLuhan meant when he said that medium is any extension of us. Federman explains that a hammer is a medium because it is an extension of our arm. And a wheel as a medium is an extension of our legs. Medium is anything that will create a message, or a change. Furthermore, anything we create or invent, any ideas we have, and ideals we hold all create change, therefore, are all McLuhan media.
Though sometimes a little difficult to understand because of the completely different perspective he uses, McLuhan’s writings engross the reader in a deep conversation about a technology. In his essay, “Understanding Radio,” McLuhan is not satisfied with staying on the surface of the subject, explaining its advantages and disadvantages. He comprehensively explains the impact it had on multiple components of society. He speaks of radio’s intimacy and “its power to turn the psyche and society into a single echo chamber.” He writes of how, though still being private, it tribalizes the world by making it smaller and creating bonds by those listening. Though his thoughts are sometimes seemingly disjointed, they do prove that the introduction of technologies create changes in many more areas of the world than we, due to our "human indifference to social effects of these radical forces," often notice.