The Medium is the Massage uses an unconventional style to illustrate McLuhan’s point that the medium chosen to communicate a message can often hold as much value or meaning as the message itself. As such, the way his book is illustrated highlights this idea. By introducing a novel way of reading, McLuhan’s readers forget what they know about disseminating information from normal books and are forced to study and study his words more closely.
McLuhan’s thoughts on the differences between print culture and television and mass media are found on page 66. He believed that television demanded your whole being to be involved and participating, like a ritual process. There is no longer time for narrative forms
Manovich’s 5 principles of “new media”
Numerical representation shows in all digital art. New media is algorithmic, programable. It can be read by computers and humans alike, even manipulated.
Modularity is depicted by pixels on a screen. All these individual objects come together to form an image or text, and can be broken up and re-arranged.
Automation means “human intentionality can be removed from the creative process, at least in part” (Manovich). Where “old” media was entirely intentional, every brush stroke, hammer chisel, etc., humans have allowed for the automation of various operations including manipulation and access of media.
Similar to modularity, variability in new media objects means a single piece of art can exist is different forms, after being copied, distorted, rearranged. This is a result of new media being made from code and numeric values.
Finally, transcoding is the way that new media becomes translated across different formats. From a video, to gif, to still image, to becoming photoshopped, new media is subjugated to being changed at anyone’s whim, to make it easier to digest and be understood across cultures.