The multimodal design in “The Medium is the Massage” appropriately acts as a kaleidoscope of ideas and concepts. McLuhan expresses the irrelevance of “old ways” in this new age of technology and explicitly draws visual aids to numerous sayings, to include: “The wheel is an extension of the foot”, and “the book is an extension of the eye…”. He expresses numerous instances of unconventional shifts in societal reasoning and meets those thoughts with equally thought-provoking imagery in a non-linear way. It seems a bit chaotic and unorganized, but I think that’s the point. Readings and visual aids collaborate and appear to be as jarring and overwhelming as the problem-sets being described. It almost appears as if you can pick up the book, shuffle it around, and pick up reading from any point while still gaining key message fragments.
McLuhan accurately depicts the complexities of new electric culture compared to its print cultures predecessor. He insinuates that with greater access, comes greater anxiety – and how a grand overhaul of our lives is inevitable.
To start, Manovich’s 1st principle can be extended into some of McLuhan’s ideas through the concept of programmability. If all new media can truly be represented numerically, it becomes more susceptible to change and drives into McLuhan’s idea of how we consume information and how that same information dictates our decision-making process. Manovich’s 2nd principle of modularity also plays well into McLuhan’s overarching theme in “The Medium is the Massage”, as he ties numerous media elements and fragments together to depict a larger message.
