Medium theory examines what media communicates and also how the medium itself influences communication, culture, and perception. It suggests that the way we experience a message is as important as the message.
For McLuhan, technology was not just a tool we use; it was an extension of ourselves. The printing press extended the eye, encouraging linear thinking and private reflection. The radio and television extended the ear and eye simultaneously, creating more emotional, collective experiences. Every new medium, in his view, reorganises human perception and society.
McLuhan’s approach is often described as technological determinism — the belief that technologies themselves drive historical and cultural change. When he claimed that “the medium is the message,” he meant that the real effect of a medium lies not in what it says, but in how it alters the scale, rhythm, and patterns of human life.
Raymond Williams, in contrast, challenges this view in his work Technology and Cultural Form. Williams argues that technology cannot be separated from the social and cultural conditions that produce it.
McLuhan focuses on how the medium can reshape the way we see and experience the world but Williams reminds us that these technologies don’t just appear out of nowhere. They’re shaped by people, ergo by our economies, our politics, and our imagination.
The strength is in recognising that technology and culture continually co-create one another.
Social media platforms don’t just carry messages, they shape how we relate, what we value, and even how we think. The logic of the feed rewards brevity, emotion, and constant visibility.
At the same time, Williams’s critique still matters: these platforms are designed and maintained by specific human interests — economic, political, and cultural — that shape how they function and what kind of world they produce.
Medium theory invites us to look beyond what we see on a screen or page and think about what’s really going on underneath.
References:
Durham, M.G. and Kellner, D. (eds.) (2006) Media and Cultural Studies: Keyworks. Rev. ed. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Laughey, D. (2007) Key Themes in Media Theory. Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill Education.
