Communication: The medium is not the message

Paul Beynon-Davies
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Paul Beynon-Davies: Cardiff University

Chapter 4 in Significance, 2011, pp 58-76 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract In the 1960s, Marshall McLuhan famously coined the phrase, the medium is the message (Mcluhan, 1994). By this he meant that communication media rather than the content of messages conveyed should be the focus of study. This influential statement has acquired something of the status of an aphorism: a universal statement of truth. But in our terms it makes a fundamental mistake: that of treating knowledge of communication media as equivalent to a complete understanding of communication. This chapter begins the process of explaining why communication is much more than media or channels of communication.

Keywords: Communication Channel; Sensory Modality; Human Communication; Alarm Call; Animal Communication (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-0-230-29502-5_4

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DOI: 10.1057/9780230295025_4

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