When Marshall McLuhan wrote ‘The Medium is the Massage’, he intended on calling it “The Medium is the Message’, but the publishers had made a mistake. However, McLuhan saw the error and stopped them from changing it as he loved the title and kept it as it was as he liked the message that the title construed as he believed that media massaged the brain to behave in a particular way. The medium is the message, which means; the way we send and receive information is more important than the information itself. Without understanding this, we are unable to see the adverse effects this has on our society. (Anton, 2012)   I will look at what is a medium and how it has changed through the advancement of technology.  I will also look at how we were once consumers of information by watching television or listening to the radio and how we have evolved into producers with technological advancements by instantly connecting with people worldwide through social media.  I will be looking at how the medium of news has changed with the introduction of social media. It is now an integral medium with common media forms, such as television, newspapers, and radio, surpassed. I will explore the theory that society’s technology determines its social structure and cultural values. In this medium shift, we have seen a huge mass of consumers becoming the producers by creating their information through social media platforms. I will look at how social media, being the new medium, has created an ecosystem of misinformation, propaganda and disinformation throughout the internet and the effects this has had on our society today and how it continues to do so. (Eshet-Alkalai & Geri, 2010) McLuhan once said:

“It is impossible to understand social and cultural changes without a knowledge of the workings of media.” (McLuhan et al., 2005)

A medium is a communication channel or how information or data is passed on from one person or place to another, particularly a news channel (the producer) to an audience (the consumer). A person’s speech, writing, clothes, and body language, as well as means of mass media like newspapers, television, and the internet, can all be used to convey a message. (Nordquist, 2020) McLuhan’s theory of “The medium is the message”,, which content is carried plays a pivotal role in how it has been perceived. It has undoubtedly not been forsaken but has been extensively studied and applied to multiple mediums TV, Print and Social Media. Numerous individuals assume the ordinary meaning for “medium” that alludes to the mass-media of communications – radio, television, the press, the internet. ( Gross, 2011)

Furthermore, most apply our conventional understanding of “message” as substance or data. Putting the two together allows individuals to jump to the mixed-up conclusion that, by one means or another, the channel takes over from the substance in importance or that McLuhan was saying that the data content ought to be overlooked as insignificant. (Pierce & Corey, 2009) Regularly individuals will triumphantly hail that the medium is “no longer the message” or flip it around to announce that the “message is the medium”. McLuhan meant what he said. Unfortunately, his meaning is not apparent, which is where we start our journey to understanding. McLuhan was worried that we tend to focus on the obvious. We miss structural societal changes that are introduced subtly over a long period from innovations. (McLuhan & Moos, 2014)

Whenever something new is created, such as social media, many of its properties are fairly obvious. We usually know what it will generally do and its advantages and disadvantages. However, so often, we look back and realise that there were some adverse effects that we were entirely unaware of at the outset; social media is an excellent example of this. (Sabedini, 2017) Throughout the 20th and 21st century, there has been considerable advancement in technology from computers and mobile phones to new smart accessories, leading to more ways for producers to communicate with the consumers. Through all this advancement of technology, we have an emergence of social media, websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or participate in social networking; this has led to many social media users using the platform as their primary source of information. Social media provides people all over the world with a range of knowledge on a variety of subjects; people are accessing information faster and becoming more conscious of a variety of topics as a result of social media platforms. While having all this information looks to be positive. When it was first introduced, many believe that it would contribute to participation in many topics, particularly politics. It created a conversation of different cultures around the world and connected them all in seconds. (Ford, 2013) 

The advent of social media has sparked a lot of excitement about its ability to level the playing field in terms of economic and political opportunity, allow for collective action, and create a whole new form of expression. Social Media has created a space for users to share information with their friends, colleagues and families in seconds by posting their personal social media profile and many different topics and beliefs. This has created a society where we were once consumers of information. Through social media, we have evolved into producers of information. Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat, all-powerful social media platforms that have evolved on a scale that no we could have ever imagined a few years ago, and its influence has spread from all aspects of our lives, such as from the way we see our news to the way we form our eating habits. All of those social media platforms have spread all over the world. (Sharma & Verma, 2018) 

While there are many positives to creating social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, there are also many cons. With the creation of a new medium, there has been a considerable increase of misinformation of false facts that have spread around the internet and social media sites. With the technological advancement of computer systems, the user is being exposed to tailored and targeted messages that highly developed computer algorithms have created. (Wu et al., 2019) We’ve seen social media sites influence many societal problems around the world over the last ten years, and the future for both the mass press and academic debate is less positive, with Facebook and Twitter being more likely to be used as vehicles for “fake news” and misinformation than for impairment and social reform. We prefer information about essential issues from people we trust, and we search for things that we are used to and understand. The biases come from our evolutionary past; for thousands of years, this has always been kind to us. (Geeng et al., 2020) Now through technology has magnified the biases in harmful ways. Search engines direct us to sites that inflame our suspicions. Social media connects us with people with similar ideologies and, in some cases, bots or automated accounts that enable disinformation throughout the internet. 

In a time where humans engage in everything from communication to knowledge to elections through technology, and they increasingly rely on technology. Moreover, in many aspects of receiving information and the accessibility of many different devices, we see information overload has created a divide in an opinion that we have never seen before. McLuhan’s theory can be looked at on how the message is more important than the information is from the 4-year tenure of Donald Trump and how he conveyed his messages every day. (Levinson, 2006) In 2016 Donald Trump went against Hilary Clinton in the presidential election, and once again, both candidates faced an extraordinary media environment. Twitter, in specific, made it possible to communicate with the voters totally without the intercession of the press. Trump utilised Twitter as his medium to splurge multiple messages about his opponents using multiple hashtags such as #crooked Hillary and #lying Ted. There is no doubt that Donald Trump becoming president in 2016, changed the rules of politics, more than likely permanently.

Many people have observed that the way Trump masterfully used social media was a significant component of the Trump phenomenon. However, they missed his ability to frame his messages on Twitter. Real-life in a fashion adapted to a society whose very habits of perception have been changed by web communications. By utilising Twitter and social media to promote political agendas, the world became a little closer to POTUS. Instead of waiting for PR Reps to go to the leading news channels, we could see what he thought about a topic in real-time. We have learned so far about Trump’s victory on Twitter because it was due to the fact that individuals thought it made him more transparent and the simplicity of the words and phrasing he used online and in real life. We found that his tweets were already in the right format, and because of his impulsivity and awful behaviour, and while the contents of the tweets did matter, it can be argued that the way he said mattered a little more. (Ross & Rivers, 2020) What does that mean for the next elections and with Trump? We will likely see Trump in the 2024 elections, and with technology moving so fast now, it is hard to predict what it may look like.

Social media is the innovation that we have seen throughout the years. There are massive positives, and by not looking at it closely, it can be tough to see the adverse effects it has had on or culture and society and continues to do so. We’ve seen social media sites influence many societal problems worldwide over the last ten years, and the future for both the mass press and academic debate is less optimistic. Facebook and Twitter are more likely to be used as vehicles for “fake news” and misinformation than for impairment and social reform. (Allen et al., 2019) The terms misinformation, propaganda and disinformation, can be used conversely, with moving and overlapping interpretations. All three apply to false or misleading information disseminated in privileged correspondence, online communications, ads, or published documents. Policymakers and lawmakers often overlook the importance of technology in illustrating the future of our social framework. The computer revolution has brought in a slew of new problems that are upsetting many of society’s core beliefs. Investigating each of the dangers and openings depicted by advancements in technology is fundamental to making sure society’s long-term vitality and safeguarding the present order. (Persily & Tucker, 2020) Even in developed countries, tech giants have built mechanisms to destabilize and erode society’s structure. Facebook and other social media sites have developed technical resources for legal marketers and consumers. They are used for malicious reasons, such as selling democracy to the highest bidder who can purchase user data. We are witnessing a worldwide attack on democracy.

Understanding the meaning of “the medium is the message” is necessary as a society as we can then tend to notice the changes. Even if slight, it helps us notice a change in our societal or cultural ground conditions demonstrates the presence of a modern message, that is, the impacts of a modern medium. The numerous unexpected consequences stem from the reality that there are conditions in our society and culture that we do not consider in our planning. These run from social or religious issues and historical precedents, through interaction with existing conditions, to the auxiliary or tertiary impacts in an avalanche of interactions. By noticing these changes, we can distinguish and recognise the new medium and the adverse effects it may bring to our society or culture; we have the opportunity to influence the development and evolution of the innovation before the effects become prevalent. McLuhan reminds us, “Control over change would seem to consist in moving not with it but ahead of it. Anticipation gives the power to deflect and control force.” (Mcluhan, 1964)