The medium is the message. Marshall McLuhan has a very unique and interesting view of American society. It is not a view that I am very fond of though. He makes America out to be media crazed and superficial.

He states “invention is the mother of necessities”. He is basically saying that society in general is only progressing in one direction and that is in the technological sense. The way I view what he is saying is that now only invent things when we need an certain thing improved and I believe this is quite wrong. The classic version of this quote is “necessity is the mother of invention”. I agree with the classic version more because when we need something we invent something for it. With McLuhan’s quote I don’t agree because after we have invented something the true problem has already been solved and we don’t truly need anything else but as humans we have a desire for convenience and technology provides convenience. So therefore I would not go as far as saying that now a’ days “invention is the mother of necessities” but that “convenience is the mother of necessities”.

McLuhan also stated "People don't actually read newspapers. They step into them every morning like a hot bath.” This quote is over exaggerated. He is basically saying that America lives by the media and I only agree with that to a certain extent. Because the media is not reliable anymore and many people don’t actually live by it that much but then again there are some people that do. Even though there are some people that live by the media it is not all of America.         

McLuhan is a very controversial figure. I do not agree with his views on the media, but they do spark a lot of thought. Even though I don’t agree with them they changed my opinion on America slightly. I still don’t believe that America is fully enthralled by the media but I do believe that the media plays a huge and significant role in American culture.

Juan Silgado

Media

Period1

2/3/10

“The media is the message”, this basically means that the power of the message is not in the story but in the way it is told. For example if you see a car accident on TV that is a lot more impacting then hearing about a car accident on the radio. Also the way the story is put out has an impact on validity. For example, a story on the internet is not as valid as a printed story. This is due to the fact that the internet can constantly be edited but a printed story is one copy that is validated by many people.