Strengths and Limitations of McLuhan
Does the name Marshall McLuhan sound familiar? What about “technological determinism”? For those unfamiliar, Marshall McLuhan was a Canadian media scholar in the 1900s. In 1964, McLuhan suggested media technologies affect patterns of human thinking and humans’ ways of relating to the world around them. He is most memorable for the phrases, “the global village” and “the medium is the message.” In essence, McLuhan’s theory underscores the importance of the way we send and receive information.
Three Strengths
1. McLuhan states, “We shape our tools and they in turn shape us.” The strength of this argument is exemplified by social media’s role in our lives. Social media is a tool that we manipulate, through creating biased stories, cultivating altered personas, and asserting fake news. As such, social media manipulates us (users) as we digest the content on social platforms.
2. In Rosenberry and Vicker’s Applied Mass Communication Theory, it is stated that media is an “extension of man.” Technology extends our understanding and interaction. As shovels are extensions of our hands and expedite the process in which we dig up dirt, technology allows us to communicate quicker and more efficiently.
3. McLuhan suggested that media runs hot and cold. The metaphor compares the relationship between the users’ interactivity of a medium and the medium itself. Television and film are considered “hot,” as people do not have a hands-on interaction. They create a passive audience. On the other hand, gaming is cold because the user and content require interaction.
Three Limitations
1. One limitation of McLuhan’s ideas is that technology doesn’t force itself on users. People create technology and choose to use it. Therefore, the use and effects lie in the hands of humans.
2. The global village conceptualizes technology connecting people throughout the world. However, he did not comment on the ownership, control, or regulation of the content within the global village.
3. The theory also ignores the outside factors that influences the spread of mass media. Political and economic groups create messages within the media, such as product placement and promoting ideologies to certain demographic groups. For example, the news is presented by adults to adult viewers.
McLuhan’s theory is more useful than not. He predicted an interconnected world, led by the mass media. I wonder what McLuhan would say about our world and the technology that runs it.