Confederacy of Drones

The Medium is the Message

Posted on February 19, 2016 Updated on February 20, 2016

In his 1964 book “Understanding Media: Extension of Man” Marshall McLuhan coined the term The Medium is the Message.  There’s no more obvious example of this than Donald Trump’s historic rise through his careful, crass, and damn-the-torpedoes-full-steam-ahead approach to getting his coiffed hair in front of every media outlet possible.

Print, radio and television – especially television – have put Trump in his most natural environment.  The actual spoken message matters little.  What matters is the image, and more precisely, his image, in as many places, in as many forms and as often as possible.  The more rude, boorish and lowbrow the actual message, the more the media will hover to catch every insult; the more bleeps required the better.

We’re going from a President who curtsies to every foreign leader he meets, friend or foe, to the possibility of a President Trump, who’s sure to start delicate foreign relations discussions with “pull my finger.”