Of mediums and messages

We look at the legacy of cultural icon Marshall McLuhan 50 years after his prophetic insights into the future of media.

In the 1960’s, long before anybody ever updated their Facebook page, posted their whereabouts on Twitter, uploaded images on Youtube, or exposed government secrets on WikiLeaks, one man made a series of  pronouncements about the changing media landscape that resonate with the internet world we live in today.

You may have never heard of Marshall McLuhan, but you have probably heard his most widely quoted dictum: "The medium is the message."

McLuhan was writing about the effects of the mass media on contemporary life and he was talking mostly about television. But his ideas had something of the prophetic – because in the tumult of today’s digital revolution, a lot of what McLuhan said has even more relevance now than it did then.