That is the title of the first chapter of a prominent book in 1964 by Marshall McLuhan. The meaning, outside the book, has been widely discussed. To me it means that the social uses and forms of communication of many media is different from anything in its content. Light bulbs, automobiles, TV, books, etc are the media and the message they convey has to do with their impact on the culture in which they are operated. Usually promoting some elements that were already present.
I have two media to discuss. One is the Internet, the other is blockchain.
The Internet is a global network of connected electronic nods that transmit sound, text and images in a nearly infinite array of forms. Presently the images are nearly all 2-dimensional. The material is nearly all stored for rapid recall.
The ‘message’ of the Internet is that society will use this medium to reflect its existing social fabric. Five qualities of the social fabric are promoted by the Internet.
- There is always a structure to grass roots communication such that some people whose opinions are representative of large groups, become visible as informal leaders. So we get Internet opinion leaders. More obvious and more common than outside the Internet.
- Our society and many other societies have a large array of ‘factions’ (Madison’s word) which become more visible as they are able to organize with a good peer-to-peer communication system. The Internet is therefore fractious.
- Many people behave badly when they are anonymous. Which is true of criminals in general and is true for a larger part of society than just the criminal class. Lots of nastiness from anonymous people on the Internet,
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Wire-limited communication misses the conviviality and gentleness of actual live person-to-person communication. The Internet provokes interpersonal hostility and fighting.
- People with political opinions that favor top-down changes to society (the Left and some other religious people) are intolerant of differing opinions and try to enforce censorship on disagreement.
Blockchain refers to one sub-Internet quality, a medium in itself; the ability to send copies of digitized material to multiple geographic locations at one time and have the material available for referenced review quickly.
For simplification I picture this as a fax machine that sends copies to several locations where the faxes are time-stamped and numbered in order for easy retrieval.
This medium is suited to all legal and bureaucratic functions. The ease of retrieval will allow much greater access to the realm of laws and regulations, possibly reducing the role of lawyers and encouraging paralegals. It may also reduce the onerous nature of laws and bureaucratic regulation. A great new policy objective established by President Trump. It could play a political commentator role like I.F. Stone played in the 1950s and 60s. There could be many I.F. Stones of many persuasions.
I.F Stone was “a liberal, politically outspoken reporter from the American left wing, Stone often had to work in ideologically hostile environments (military, diplomatic, business) where information was controlled, making verifiability the essence of his journalism, corroborated by facts in the public domain, which the reader could verify. About his style of work as an investigative journalist, Stone said:
I made no claims to 'inside stuff'. I tried to give information which could be documented, so [that] the reader could check it for himself ... Reporters tend to be absorbed by the bureaucracies they cover; they take on the habits, attitudes, and even accents of the military or the diplomatic corps. Should a reporter resist the pressure, there are many ways to get rid of him. ... But a reporter covering the whole capital on his own — particularly if he is his own employer — is immune from these [political] pressures.
“The journalistic professionalism and integrity of I. F. Stone derived from his intellectual willingness to scour and devour public documents, to bury himself in The Congressional Record, to study the transcripts of obscure congressional committee hearings, debates and reports. He prospected for news nuggets — published as boxed paragraphs in his weekly newsletter — such as contradictions in the line of official policy, examples of bureaucratic mendacity and political obscurantism. Stone especially sought evidence of the U.S. government's legalistic incursions against the civil liberties and the civil and political rights of American citizens.” (Source en.wikipedia)
The earliest widespread use of blockchain has been for bitcoin, a currency. Currency can be any medium that is popularly accepted (cowry shells and cigarettes.) The widespread use of blockchain as a currency has occurred because conventional currency is controlled by governments and governments are not universally popular. Bitcoin’s future use is dependent on its continued level of popularity. Which in turn is dependent on the size and locale of its users.