People are living in 21st century, which is characterized as information technology era. Due to the development of technology, usage of mass media is growing up rapidly, also applying widely in many fields. This phenomenon makes possible for human to live in many dimensions of time space by sharing information through different kinds of media with electric signals. Tremendous of information are acquired by media in people’s daily life either they want to or don’t. In this book ‘The Medium is the Massage’, Marshall McLuhan points out this phenomenon and explains the influences of media. Moreover he suggests how to dealing with media and their message in people’s lives.
McLuhan has very interesting points of view about media. He does not limit the meaning of the media as simply as delivering method that people usually think, but he expands its meaning to all technology that people developed and use. That is why his theory of media feels more appropriate in current information technology era rather than 1960s when he suggested it. For McLuhan, all media with technology are the extension of human-mentally or physically. Thus, each of new technology should be treated as new standards of people’s lives, and all media would affect people’s way of understanding the world as well as setting values.
As McLuhan’s points out, people experiencing the extension of physical functions with the new media. For example, nowadays people’s lives are not limited to the real world, but at the same time they also living in ‘cyber space’ through the media named internet. As technology is developing, the borderline between real world and cyber space is getting vague. People might feel free to sending or getting messages, however, reckless acquire of message could bring a bad result. In this environment, people should understand the roles of media and recognize the real message they bring.
