Is the medium still the massage?

Editor's Notes

• #3 McLuhan coined the phrase ‘the medium is the message’ as early as 1964, and his publication ‘The medium is the Massage’ is 50 years old this year (2017). In celebration of the anniversary of this seminal work, Newsworks have teamed up with research agencies Flamingo and Tapestry to explore his ideas in the context of the modern media landscape. McLuhan’s book was originally supposed to be called ‘the medium is the message’, not ‘massage’. The typesetter had got it wrong, but McLuhan thought he’d go with it. A medium is defined as one of the means or channels of general communication, information or entertainment in society.
• #4 The meaning behind this is that any medium shapes and ‘massages’ the message (McLuhan refers to as “content”) within it. The medium used to communicate a message shapes how we perceive the message as much the content itself. This is because mediums require us to use different senses to understand and experience the world; therefore the senses a medium prioritises or deprioritises influences how we understand and experience the message. McLuhan wrote about the Kennedy / Nixon presidential debates in 1960’s USA, the first presidential debates in American history took place, which revolutionised the way in which elections and politicians reach voters. Those who heard them on radio received the overwhelming idea of Nixon’s superiority. Radio extends sound in ‘high definition’. What McLuhan meant is that it extends this single sense – sound - dramatically. This is what McLuhan defined as a ‘hot‘ medium. TV on the other hand, is defined as a ‘cool‘ medium in McLuhan‘s time, harnessing more senses and leaving more to be filled in by the listener according to their individual world view, as well as being participatory (families would frequently spend time watching TV together). McLuhan believed that had TV occurred on a large scale during Hitler’s time, he would have vanished. A tongue in cheek modern day example from Russell Brand‘s ‘Trews‘ show is where Brand calls Teresa May ‚a vindictive librarian drawn by Quentin Blake‘. Russell Brand is suggesting that May is not quite very suited to the visual medium!
• #5 In entering the online space newsbrands have leveraged mediums beyond text and image to create mixed-medium news experiences. Whilst newsbrands retain their sense of internal cohesion, they have also added a greater sense of richness and immersive-ness to their reporting. Additional levels of meaning are provided to stories depending on which mixed-medium is being employed.
• #6 The dominant mediums in any culture impact its values and behaviours. So, before the invention of alphabets the spoken word was key, involving all of our senses dramatically. The advent of the written word (a ‘hot’, single sense medium) enabled people to put up walls of time and space and feeling between subject and object; McLuhan writes that ‘man was given an eye for an ear’ highlighting that humans fundamentally adapted from using a ‘cold’ medium to using a ‘hot’ medium as a means of making sense of the world. The written word gave societies the tools to classify and slice up the world of human experience in an individual, logical way, and changed the way that humans reflect and communicate. So where once we lived in an inclusive, participatory society where everything was experienced at the same time, we now found ourselves in a more individualistic, private society. McLuhan talks about the American flag, writing, “Suppose that instead of displaying the stars and stripes, we were to write the words “American Flag” across a piece of cloth and display that. While the symbols would convey the same meaning, the effect would be quite different.” A flag is visual. By changing from image to written word in this context, when the stars and stripes are replaced with the words ‘American flag’, you’re making harnessing the medium differently. As McLuhan wrote, “To translate the rich visual mosaic of the Stars and Stripes into written form would be to deprive it of most of its qualities”.
• #7 McLuhan was writing when electronic mediums (TV and Radio) were disrupting the dominance of the written word. For example, TV as a medium encouraged a return to the collective participation of ‘tribal days’. Through it’s ritualistic and rhythmic programming TV ‘fosters patterns rather than events’. Audiences come together at the same time and enjoy big emotions. TV’s had an effect on NFL. The ability of the spectator to see the reply changed how footballers thought about the way they play as they were no longer simply interested in the effect of the play – so whether or not their team scored a home run. They are now also interested in the process of the play “We have now got to play the game in such a way so as the audience can watch the actual process we’re performing.” They had to open up the play on the field so that audience could participate more fully in the process of the play. However the written word didn't disappear but was re-configured. We started to live in a world based around values of both: thinking values which fragment and feeling values which unify.
• #8 The effects that different mediums have on a audience often go unnoticed. Think vs. Feel: The extent to which a medium prompts us to feel the story vs. thinking about it; engaging the senses vs. our rational mind, communicating emotion vs. facts . Convergence vs. Divergence: This is the extent to which a story is being honed down and a single perspective aligned on (convergence) vs being opened up and expanded on with more diverse perspectives (divergence).
• #9 McLuhan said of ‘electric’ (eg TV), “Previous technologies were partial and fragmentary. The electric is total and inclusive.” As electric mediums like TV started to challenge the dominance of the written word McLuhan predicted society would move into the ‘feel’ and ‘convergence’ side of the spectrum, with more inclusive, collective views of the world taking precedence.
• #10 With this greater level of feel through greater access to more electric mediums (TV, video, film, radio etc.) we are invited to engage with content using a wider range of senses With more divergent sources of information available at any one time, the speed with which information is produced and shared has led to an increase in the sheer volume of perspectives: there is simply more divergence out there than ever before.
• #11 Online is also where we play with and express our subjectivities, it’s where we socialise and debate. In building and expressing our identities using the tools of the online environment, we assume an active and participatory relationship with the space. A fragmented, non-linear space, with infinite and constantly updating information and news, we approach the online with an on-demand mentality: we feel we have to pick and choose what we consume which can make us more critical of content It is a world based in networked information, shared between multiple individuals, groups, organisations etc; a fragmented world in which news feels much more divergent
• #12 When faced with a greater number of opinions, we more often than not pick the one that fits our worldview. For example, when we’re filtering and grazing on social media we tend to assume that news we agree with comes from a brand we like and trust. It’s only when we disagree with a story that pops up, that we might notice the specific news source. This helps explain the success of fake news websites in generating hype among targeted electorates by serving up stories that chime with prevailing views. The great divergence provided by mediums today does not necessarily lead to people encountering more divergent points of view. In fact the sheer volume of information and the speed with which information changes and updates makes it very difficult for audiences to process lots of different ideas and hold conflicting points of view. Faced with so much data, people look for things that make intuitive sense based on their existing values and viewpoints: instead of looking for difference and fragments that when connected create new understanding people look for patterns and similarity that resonate with their world view.
• #13 Our relationship with established media has been reconfigured. We have seen the creation of hybrid mediums, where the once single platform mediums have evolved to adapt to the changing map. Newsbrands have adapted best to this new world of news. Mcluhan wrote that ‘a photo is like a statement without syntax’, and we’ve found that newsbrands provide this order and give sense to the world. They have led the way by innovating their brands into different types of news delivery while capitalising on the strengths of their heritage. They have used these new forms of delivery to offer more feeling and divergence alongside their more thoughtful legacy role. Print has not died a death, it has reconfigured its role in people’s news habits, providing a sense of completeness. As Nigel, one of our interviewees, said “You can’t read the internet cover to cover”.
• #14 Print’s privileging of the written word forces us to think and take in more of the content to build our understanding of a story. All stories are relative to each other; its pages are a careful collated and laid out hierarchy of what it deems to be the most important that day. This internal coherence and convergence provides readers with a lens on the world. In a world where news can feel vast, print gives a satisfying and comforting sense of completeness not available elsewhere. The fact it cannot blur with other media means intrinsic qualities such as touch are shored up rather than stolen by other new mediums. This means that print newspapers over-index on the convergence metrics of confirming what you think and being what people like you talk about. They also add to the thinking task of providing depth and detail, and arming you with the facts.
• #15 The inclusion of video and audio into online news stories connects us to the spoken word and enables newsbrands to express greater shades of feeling and meaning than the written word alone. The craft of professional film-making enables newsbrands to immerse people emotionally in a story and use that narrative to challenge their thinking. This means that print newspapers over-index on the convergence metrics of confirming what you think and being what people like you talk about. They also to the thinking task of proving depth and detail, and arming you with the facts. This means that professional video on newsbrands websites over-index on the divergence aspects of challenging thinking and introducing to new ideas, but also the feeling side of relating to stories and giving you a sense of being there.
• #16 On the other hand, the use of real-life video is even more about feeling like you are on the ground and part of the story itself. It viscerally affects the senses as much as the mind. This means the real-life video on newsbrands websites deliver a stronger feeling punch, with much more emotional connection.
• #17 As a point of contrast....TV news bulletins are under pressure given all these different hybrid mediums. If you think about it, the TV news bulletin used to bring us all together in a shared experience of an event – the wedding of Diana and Charles, for example. Today, the TV news bulletin struggles to unify people in the same way. For live news events, to feel like we are there in the moment, we increasingly look online: especially to Twitter. In extreme cases, people remark that the TV news bulletin today is dragging out the live-ness of an event. So it gives depth, detail and information, and helps you understand a story. It can also introduce you to new ideas and give a broader perspective. It doesn’t bring much feeling to play though – we use other medium for that these days.
• #18 One of the main ways we get our feelings is through social media. However, despite its prominent position in the landscape of news its useful to remember that Facebook’s primary purpose is not to disseminate news but to enable us to write and share our own life story. On Facebook, we build our story through curating relationships with other people and things – friends, likes, dislikes, reactions. In this context, it makes the news into something more personal. The News we encounter through Facebook is then experienced as a series of talking points between people that connect us to ‘our’ public’s conversation. So it delivers a sense of convergence, of what people like you are talking about. It also gives a sense of others feelings and an emotional connection to the story. Essentially, social media have launched news into the feeling space, but have ended up giving us a narrower view of the world. It’s a series of talking points, often dominated by imagery that is less connected to analysis or depth. Or, as McLuhan put it, a photo is like a sentence without syntax.
• #19 What does this shift to feeling mean? Aggregating all our data we see a strong correlation between how much a medium makes you think and how much you trust it. There’s a weaker correlation with divergence – how much a medium introduces you to new ideas – and trust, but it’s still more associated with trusted mediums than those that encourage convergence. So as mediums move more towards the feeling driven, convergence side of things, it’s notable that trust resides in the other direction. It’s with thinking and divergence, opening up to other points of view.
• #20 We can see this in action with social media. Remember we said that news on social media is up in that feeling, convergence space – the space where trust is lowest? If newsbrands join up with social media then the increased thinking and divergence they bring increase trust in the overall package considerably, making it 1.4x more trusted than news on social media without the presence of news brands.
• #21 Some mediums prompt us to think, others prompt us to feel Some hone down a story’s meaning and some open it up to more diverse views New mediums always re-configure the relationships between each another; digital hybrid mediums have expanded the media landscape Newsbrands stretch across the news landscape, utilising new forms of delivery to offer more feeling and divergence alongside their more thoughtful legacy role Trust is more strongly correlated with thinking and divergence; it’s negatively correlated with feeling, the new frontier of news delivery Newsbrands achieve an optimum balance, retaining their legacy levels of trust even when they use digital to dial up the feeling
• #22 About Newsworks   Newsworks is the marketing body for national newspapers in all their forms. Our stakeholders are dmg media, ESI Media, Guardian News & Media, Johnston Press, News UK, Telegraph Media Group and Trinity Mirror Solutions.   We collaborate with all parts of the industry, including advertisers, agencies and rival media, to promote understanding of national newspapers, and their role as newsbrands in the multi-platform world. We aim to celebrate and share the best in research, planning and creative involving national newspapers.   Find out more at http://www.newsworks.org.uk About Flamingo   Flamingo is an insight and strategy agency working all around the world, all of the time. We apply incisive people, cultural and brand insight to help our clients get to the truly powerful ideas that resonate - ideas that shape culture, enrich lives and deliver sustainable business growth. We draw on our specialisms – from People Insight, Semiotics, Cultural Futures and Digital Forensics – to provide a unique and informed lens on the world. Find out more at http://flamingogroup.com/home/ About Tapestry Tapestry is a market research agency, which connects information in any format – qual, quant, sales, media & social data – to help answer the toughest questions. What really makes us different though is our breadth of perspective, our understanding of consumers and knowledge of the shifting media landscape. This drives our thought-provoking study design. It’s also what makes our output stand out; a report distilling complex data into an interesting story, an infographic or even software that’s integrated into your planning process – whatever you need to connect to the meaning behind the information. Find out more at http://tapestryresearch.com/