The Content of Any Medium is Always Another Medium

The electric light is pure information. It is a medium without a message, as it were, unless it is used to spell out some verbal ad or name. This fact, characteristic of all media, means that the "content" of any medium is always another medium. the content of writing is speech, just as the written word is the content of print, and print is the content of the telegraph.

...Whether the light is being used for brain surgery or night baseball is a matter of indifference. It could be argued that these activities are in some way the "content" of the electric light, since they could not exist without the electric light. This fact merely underlines the point that "the medium is the message" because it is the medium that shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and action. The content or uses of such media are as diverse as they are ineffectual in shaping the form of human association. Indeed, it is only too typical that the "content" of any medium blinds us to the character of the medium.

Notes:

Mediums are object-oriented, with one extending from another, inheriting from the parent.

Folksonomies: new media

Taxonomies:
/art and entertainment/shows and events/classical concert (0.692356)
/home and garden/interior decorating (0.455671)
/science/medicine/surgery (0.420583)

Keywords:
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Entities:
baseball:Sport (0.752843 (negative:-0.389209))

The Medium Is the Message

Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: McLuhan, Marshall (1964), The Medium Is the Message, McGraw Hill, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, New York, Retrieved on 2009-11-30