The Medium is the Massage

30 years after its publication Marshall McLuhan’s The Medium is the Massage remains his most entertaining, provocative and piquant book. With every technological and social advancement, McLuhan’s proclamation that “the media work us over completely” becomes more evident and plain. In his words, so pervasive are they in their personal, political, economic, aesthetic, psychological, moral, ethical and social consequences that they leave no part of us untouched, unaffected, or unaltered. McLuhan suggests modern audiences enjoy MainStream media as soothing, enjoyable, and relaxing, however, the pleasure we find in the MainStream media is deceiving, because/as/since the changes between society and technology are incongruent, perpetuating an Age of Anxiety. McLuhan’s remarkable observation that “societies have always been shaped more by the nature of the media by which men communicate than by the content of the communication” is undoubtedly more relevant today than ever before. With the rise of the internet and the explosion of the digital revolution there has never been a better time to revisit Marshall McLuhan.