The medium is the message

The medium is the message is a phrase coined by Marshall McLuhan. The phrase was introduced in his most widely known book, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, published in 1964. McLuhan proposes that media itself, not the content it carries, should be the focus of study. He said that a medium affects the society in which it plays a role not only by the content delivered over the medium, but also by the characteristics of the medium itself.
Adapted from Wikipedia


Saturday morning Google News:

Chile rocked by 8.5 magnitude earthquake - 20 minutes ago

Then Twitter feeds:

Tsunami warnings in Hawaii - 10 minutes ago

Wow! We have good friends throughout the Hawaiian Islands, so I did a little more web surfing about the earthquake and potential Tsunami impact areas.

Flipped on CNN which was all over this story, and for about an hour prior to the estimated impact time, all news was from Hawaii. CNN was switching back and forth from different local Hawaii news stations covering the story from many different vantage points near Hilo on the Big Island and in Honolulu on Oahu.

The interesting thing about the coverage was the amount of internet based media they were using. Webcam footage, Skype audio and video feeds, FaceBook, Twitter feeds, and the very cool magic board where a reporter can quickly show web based information like on a desktop, but with the ease of an iTablet for resizing and jumping back and forth between documents.

All of this internet based media use just confirmed for me again the merging of the mediums. The internet has significantly impacted how we get our information, and how we should consider reaching our markets.