“The Medium is the Message”: An Instructional Design Perspective

Back in the 1960s, Marshall McLuhan famously argued that “the medium is the message.” According to McLuhan, we focus too much of our efforts trying to dissect the content presented in a medium without considering the effect that the medium itself will have on that content. Content and mediums have a symbiotic relationship, and one shouldn’t be examined without consideration of the other. (I’m pretty sure I got this right, but Woody Allen can correct me if I’m wrong.)