If we think of media as a means of communicating information, such as newspapers, television, and the Internet, then it may seem that the relationship between media and design is only partial. However, if we take this term not only as a traditional information medium, but also as the artifacts that surround us in general, such as architecture, housing, clothing, vehicles, and even information devices, they overlap greatly with the realm of design. From this perspective, Marshall McLuhan’s 1964 book Understanding Media actually developed a discussion that could be called a classic of media theory.

One of the best-known assertions in this work is the thesis that “the media is the message.” What does it mean to point out that the media itself is the message?

With specific examples such as newspapers and television in mind, media are generally regarded as vehicles for the transmission of information and content, and as containers for messages. At the origin of this understanding is cybernetics, the starting point of today’s information technology, exemplified by Shannon and Weaver’s mathematical model of communication between sender and receiver (or R. Jacobson’s version for its linguistic development). This is precisely the understanding that McLuhan’s previous remarks were trying to criticize. Is the transparent and idealistic model, in which the message is transmitted to the receiver as the sender intended really valid? In fact, the delivery of a message often has unintended consequences, and the format of a letter, phone call, or email can alter the message enormously, from the opening statement to the content and the manner in which it is conveyed. Furthermore, from a historical perspective, the media used to transmit information, from letterpress to books and newspapers, from telegraph and radio to television (and the Internet, which was not yet a reality in McLuhan’s time), have constituted the technological environment that surrounds us throughout history, and each time they have defined the content of the message itself. Thus, the thesis that “the media is the message” implies that we should reconsider media from a broad perspective that encompasses the history of civilization, not in terms of their individual meanings and content, but in terms of the “influence” they have had on our physical organs and sense perceptions.

As a concrete example, in the second part of Understanding Media, various artifacts are examined in each chapter. There are not only newspapers, advertisements, radio, television, and so on, which fit the common understanding of media, but also clothes, houses, wheels, bicycles, airplanes, automobiles, and even money, weapons, automation, and many other examples that are difficult to call media at first glance. However, let us consider each of them not merely as something that conveys meaning, but as a technological environment that has had a profound impact on human beings. For example, the development of transportation technology from the wheel to the bicycle to the automobile, regardless of who the passengers (content) were, greatly changed the way people shared time and space until they arrived at their destination. In fact, 19th century railroads brought unfamiliar landscapes to people’s sensory organs, forcing them to spend time with strangers without exchanging a glance or a word. Further, current Internet technology, whatever the content of the information exchanged, simultaneously connects people all over the world and realizes a network environment that affects their behavior (McLuhan used the term “global village” in a prescient discussion of this point). If the sensation of receiving a program as its content differs according to the form, such as radio, television, or the Internet, it is precisely the media as message that defines our bodies and senses.

What is interesting is the fact that many of the examples chosen to illustrate the effects of these media overlap with things that have been the subject of design in the past. For example, when Koji Taki, a critic who developed design theory in Japan, points out that the function of media is not merely to mediate information, but to change the world through its own form, it is not difficult to see McLuhan’s media theory mentioned above being adapted to this understanding. In fact, in many of Taki’s essays, this idea is applied to discrete and broad areas such as architecture, photography, furniture, and decoration. In this way, where design theory and media theory overlap, it becomes necessary to examine not what meaning or message the form or design contains, but what effect the form has on our senses and perceptions. In other words, design is not only about the products and things in front of us, but also about our senses, perceptions, and even communication itself.

This understanding of design in terms of media theory has had a strong influence on recent digital technologies. This can be seen, for example, in the concept of “remediation” proposed by Jay D. Bolter and Richard Grusin. This concept also expands on McLuhan’s argument that “the content of the media is the media of the past,” and Bolter and Grusin pointed out that an essential characteristic of new media after digital technology is that they incorporate the media of the past as their content. Indeed, the content of personal computers are documents, photographs, music, movies, letters, telegraphs, and other media of the past, and the relationship between tablet devices and e-books reenacts the experience of reading, which was still supported by paper, at the level of our bodies and senses. Based on this, current designs such as user interfaces and media art, which Bolter and others are discussing, should continue to overlap more and more with the realm of media (theory) in the future.

(MASUDA Nobuhiro)

Related Classes

Design Future Course Design Aesthetics

References

• Bolter, Jay David, Grusin, Richard (1999) Remediation: Understanding New Media, MIT Press.
• Bolter, Jay David, Gromala, Diane (2003) Windows and Mirrors: Interaction Design, Digital Art, and the Myth of Transparency, MIT Press（ジェイ・デイヴィッド・ボルター、ダイアン・グロマラ（2007）『メディアは透明になるべきか』田畑暁生訳、NTT出版）
• Mcluhan, Marshall (1964) Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, McGraw-Hill（マーシャル・マクルーハン（1987）『メディア論 人間の拡張の諸相』栗原裕・河本仲聖訳、みすず書房）

• 多木浩二（2008）『眼の隠喩 視線の現象学』ちくま学芸文庫