Marshall McLuhan — a godfather of 20th-century communication theory — characterized one of the challenges inherent in connecting when he coined the phrase “the medium is the message.”Seth Godin hit on it from a different angle in his timely post today, Get Over Yourself.Given the timing — the 1960’s, in North America — many interpreted McLuhan’s theorizing as particularly pertinent to advertising and the increasing reach of mass media. The idea — that the channel is not just acarrier, but part-and-parcel of the message — has been the subject of countless debates and scholastic examinations.
On far less lofty ground, marketers, advertisers and media types have for decades hypothesized about McLuhan’s precise inference, and the implications for which medium best fit what message.
And in the process, we often theorize right over the real point.
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