The Medium was the Message

http://www.scoop.it/t/e-learning-inclusivo/p/2779157017/2012/09/24/mobile-mcluhan-float-mobile-learning

"Personal and social consequences of any medium - that is, of any extension of ourselves- result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or by any new technology"

In a lecture on ABC Radio National in 1977, media theorist Marshall McLuhan declares, “The hidden aspects of the media are the things that should be taught because they have an irresistible force when invisible. When these factors remain ignored, when invisible, they have an absolute power over the user (4:54; Part 2).” As an educator in the digital age, this comment resonates with me as being even more applicable forty years later and leads to the questions: how can students be made acutely aware of this power as it exists and the power they possess through being able to have command of different forms of media (both in and out of the classroom)? How can the invisible be made visible in the classroom?

In the same lecture series, McLuhan goes on to say that we live in a world where we have so much power - mass media manipulates entire populations. I would argue that now, more than ever, we need to be cognizant of how media forms wield power and, more importantly, how the “personal and social consequences of any medium - that is, of any extension of ourselves- result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or by any new technology” (1977, p.1). This cartoon, taken from an e-learning blog, represents the power shift that modern, mobile technology has had over traditional forms of media (in this case a book). It makes me think about the extent that modern forms of technology have become an extension of students and to consider some of the possible consequences of this for in the classroom.

Benjamin Walter (2008), in exploring the initial significance of the printing press that provided opportunity for readers to become writers, established that “literary competence is no longer founded on specialized higher education but on polytechnic training (p.34).” The connection that can be made here being that the development of technology (the press) afforded a shift in power that expanded the accessibility of knowledge (publication) to those who understood how to use the new technology. In other words, “the medium was the message.” Is the surrender of the book to the mobile phone a metaphor for traditional forms of education being forced to relinquish existing power to new forms of media? And, if so, what are the consequential messages that accompany the new medium?