McLuhan Response

  
      

Marshall McLuhan is a notable Canadian philosopher of communication theory.  He was interviewed by Playboy about his theories regarding communication theory and how he came about those conclusions. McLuhan made various points in his interviews but the ones that I will discuss about are:  keeping up with the latest innovations in media, implications of certain media have not been studied, and the notion of always being informed.  

 Since the invention of radio, the way we communicate and share ideas has changed tremendously.  Television made it possible for us to look at images with sounds and now with the recent innovation of social media, it has made it easier for people to share information and ideas. But with many different platforms of social media that is occurring it is difficult to keep up. McLuhan suggests that we keep up as much as possible with the new inventions such as social. It is important because some of the traditional ways of media like the newspaper will become digitized.  But not only does McLuhan suggests for us to keep up with the new innovations but to do research on them as well.   Since social media is relatively knew there has not been too much data released to the public about it. Although not enough research has been done, there are some inferences we can suggest about social media.  Social media has allowed more businesses to get consumers information and has led for people to use it as a tool of freedom of expression to name a few.  Social media is an aspect of the impact digital culture is currently having on our society. Today we can find newspapers, books, archives and other resources that we used to use manually, are becoming digitized.  Reading from an iPad or Kindle can impact our vision, and it is not ideal for taking notes. In short, McLuhan wants us to be aware of the latest innovations and how the implications can affect us. 

The saying “no news is good news” is now seen not well enough to our society. We always want to do what is going on in the world. If we don’t it feels like we are “missing in action.” Today, Facebook and Twitter lets us see what is trending. Even the newspapers have applications such as the NY Times will alert when there is breaking news.  Not only is the news keeping us updated with news stories 24/7 but there is an increase of interdependence between social media and news. Sometimes social media has the breaking news before the newspaper and the news rooms.  

McLuhan’s theories are still applicable to today’s innovation especially to social media. Social media is very new as I mentioned before and there is still more research being done that will help us understand it more and how we are reacting to this change.  If McLuhan were alive today, I think that he would want us to be involved with social media but to be careful not to get addicted. He would also want society to question more about what is going around.