The concept of Medium Theory was originally coined by a Canadian media scholar named Marshall McLuhan, famous for saying, “the medium is the message.” The idea was that the true power of media isn’t in the messages it carries, but in the way the form of the media itself affects the way society thinks, observes, and structures.
He believed that media were sense extensions. Writing was an extension of the eye, enabling the storage of thoughts. The television was an extension of the eye as well as the ear, enabling people to share the same experience over distance. This means that when the media change, the culture that the people possess also changes.
Take the example of the smartphone, for example. The smartphone has not only been a means of communication but has also changed the concept of time-space in our lives. The boundaries between work, social interactions, and time, in the sense of working hours, no longer exist, as the “online presence” has reduced the distinctions between private life, work, and rest time, thanks to the structure of the medium, rather than the content.
In the same manner, the rise of short video-sharing sites, TikTok, also known as Douyin, has changed the way information has been consumed. Unlike the text format in blogging, short videos impart information in the form of rapid, visually appealing snippets. The visual format focuses not just on intellectual intake but also stimulation. This promotes the concept of a “snack culture” of knowledge, in which information has to be bite-sized, catchy, and easily consumable. In this way, it again shows the concept proposed by McLuhan, where the message isn’t as important as the means of the message.
“Medium theory” challenges us to move beyond the surface level of media content, thinking instead about how the technology media use affects us every day in terms of perception—the way in which reality itself becomes constructed. In talking today about technology like AI content, VR, the Metaverse, it’s all the same question that McLuhan asked a long time ago: media shape the experience of reality for humanity. In the modern world, it can be easily assumed that technology is a non-issue, that it’s all about how it’s used. But this isn’t true, at least not if McLuhan has any say in the matter. Each time there’s a changeover to a new technology, like the printing press in the case of the single-screen iPhone, it resizes the world, altering how information moves, how people connect. This has a crucial perspective when it comes to grasping the true “message” in this technology.
Reference：
McLuhan, Marshall. “The Medium Is the Message.” Originally published 1964.
Meyrowitz, Joshua. No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior. Oxford University Press, 1985.
Scolari, Carlos A. “Media Ecology: A Complex Systems Approach.” Communication Theory, vol. 22, no. 2, 2012.
Statista – TikTok Usage and User Behavior (2023–2024).
You explained this concept really well, especially with the contextualisation of the smartphone, highlighting how it has evolved to meet our new needs in the digital age. It’s also great how you bring up issues that have appeared as a result too.
Your article elucidates the core concept of McLuhan’s media theory — ‘the medium is the message’. It explains that the real impact of a medium lies not in the content it conveys, but in how it change human perception and social structures. You use smartphones and short video platforms as examples to show how these media blurred the boundaries between work and life, lead to distraction, and reshape the way we consume time and information. Finally, you point out that media is not a neutral tool but a force that can affects society and human thinking, prompting people to reflect on how technology unintentionally changes our lifestyles.