Blog 12: The Medium is the Message

These last few chapters of this short book were very interesting. It seemed to coincide with something that I have been talking about in my New Media and Culture class. The topic we studied was a sentence coined by the person named Marshall McLuhan. The phrase is, “The Medium is the Message.” This chapter goes into depth explaining the advancements in technology and how we are able to use these technologies with rhetoric. I think the phrase, “The Medium is the Message” goes very well with this chapter. It matters the way that we spread rhetoric whether it be through written, oral, or some other means such as TV. The chapter also talked about how human culture moved broadly from its initial ‘primary orality’ where spoken word was the most popular way in which rhetoric was spread to the ‘second orality’ which we use writing to spread rhetoric that is used mostly in the modern era.

Another interesting thing the chapter talked about was the way in which leaders used rhetoric. For example, how Teddy Roosevelt used it to help get people on board with going to war against Germany in WWII but at the same time trying to cover up some of the facts of war. Another example was how Hitler used rhetoric to try and say that Jews must be the ‘necessary consequence’ of war while sending messages to his subordinates letting them know what was expected of them. These chapters did a good job explaining how rhetoric has been used in the past along with which mediums are used.

Questions:

Do you think that we are moving into a ‘third orality’ with the way technology is advancing in the ways you are able to use rhetoric?

Which medium do you think is the best when using rhetoric?

Picture taken from: https://jamesbhurley.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/rhetoric.gif

Toye, Richard. Rhetoric: a very short introduction. Oxford: Oxford U Press, 2013. Print.