The Medium is the Message...

Yes, it's a one-liner taken from Marshall McLuhan and there is much more to the story behind that line than I am able to provide, but it resonates with me now as I type out my blog. What does it mean to have a blog? To communicate (am I communicating if noone is reading?) through this distant electronic format, as some have said, "Screaming into the void!" By placing my writing in this space, I've chosen a medium which is dictating the way in which I will interact with people. I've distanced myself from any direct contact with others. I exist as an idea in an electronic world. To the readers, I am a vision in their own minds. My words make some image based on the biases of each individual readers perceptions of what I write. It occurs to me that this is yet another way in which the distortion-of-perception occurs with the blog. I originally coined the term for my blog, because I felt that what I wrote would be my own distortion of events or ideas as I perceived them. Now, there is a whole new level to which distortion applies! Once again, I find myself up against the idea of communication itself and how messy it is.

But back to my original idea, the medium. What is its message, what does it say about the individuals who use it? I have a feeling that its creating distance between individuals, that we are losing the ability to speak with one another directly. We require an interface through which we speak. In my mind, this is not a happy situation. I envision the breakdown of communities, we no longer know who our neighbour is, we are individual ships floating haphazardly in a vast ocean. That's the pessimist.

And now, we introduce the optimist. I'm new to the blog, I'm experimenting with it myself, but from what I've seen, there is another community that exists and its larger than the eye can see. Its incredibly interconnected, there is dialogue, relationships are built and some I'm sure die out or pass away. But if you spend any time looking around you will quickly see, as I have, that there are bonds being formed just as any other community may have them. Sure, the medium dictates that the bond is different, but it exists none the less. I'm surprised, or rather simply naive, I was unaware of the multiple ways in which community can form. I've been exposed to something new, and its a little strange, its mysterious, but then so are the relationships I have in any other context, in any other medium. I've joined a community, to which I still don't know all the rules (do any exist?), but I'm communicating more now than I did when I wrote in my own black-books!
- posted by the Tourist @ 21:35UTC - want to