Digital Culture & Social Change

The human race has always been susceptible to social alteration due to the ever-changing
environment we live in. There are magnitudes of factors that play a role in social change.
Some of the central factors that lead us to such change are credited to cultural, physical
(environment), demographic (biological), economic, and political influences. Though, today
one of the leading elements of societal transformation revolves around media. Conversely,
it is not necessarily “what” we are seeing or hearing when considering the media as a
leading contributor, but more so “how” we are using the media among the countless
mediums we have to choose from.
Marshall McLuhan is considered to be one of the fathers of communication and media
theory. He had similar concerns regarding the correlation of media (mediums) and social
revolution. McLuhan writes about his theories and trepidations in the book The Medium is
The Massage (1967). The book discourses how voice, writing, and electric media have
affected cognition individually and societally. The authors (McLuhan & Fiore) touch on
several aspects of this notion including one of the more famous McLuhan coins known as
the “global village”. They also go on to discuss how different types of media require
different senses affecting the overall way we view the world.
The title is a play on McLuhan's often-quoted phrase "The medium is the message." The
book was initiated by Quentin Fiore. McLuhan adopted the term "massage" to denote the
effect of numerous media in how they massage the human sensorium.
Disruptive technologies can create an invisible environment making things inconceivable
to the established environments. Art helps draw our attention to the world we live in and
that is a large aspect of this book being predominantly compiled of pictures. New media is
discussed in a way that opens the reader up to the idea of viewing such effects as a style of
all-inclusive living, focusing on our role in society rather than what we can give back to
society. The Medium is The Massage gives great insight regarding the consequences of
media in terms of politics, self, family, neighbor, environment, and education among many
more.
“Media, by altering the environment, evoke in us unique ratios of sense perceptions. The
extension of any one sense alters the way we think and act — the way we perceive the
world. When these ratios change, men change,” he says.
The media altered environment has caused us to surrender to living within a global village.
Time being ceased coupled with space vanishing has led to a much more intimate public
sphere locally, nationally and globally. Instant communication insures that all dynamics of
the environment and of involvement harmonize in a form of active interplay. This
harmonization holds lasting effects on not only the self, but also the concepts of family,
neighborhood, education, work (job), and government.
Distinguishing the self in today’s society is very different than that of predeceasing eras.
Our claim to privacy is being threatened by the tyranny of publicness and the lack of
eradicating our early mistakes. Living an instantaneous need-to-tell-need-to-know lifestyle
obscures the essence of traditional patterns of mechanistic technologies. We have all
become workers in the force for social change beginning with the self, inevitably leading to
transcend into the “family”.
The dynamics of family have had the most significant alterations owed to our digital
culture. McLuhan describes the major shift in family as a widened pool of intelligence
procreated by electric media. In other words, the family circle has broadened and electric
media such as TV, movies, video games, Internet, etc. far exceeds any possible influence
that ones parents can now bring to bear. Our parents are now looked at, as only “fumbling
experts” while now the entire world’s astute.
Education is a word that carries a generalized dissimilar meaning in today’s digital world, a
world of disparity between the prevailing home environment of cohesive electric
information and the classroom. Today’s children are unavoidably exposed to adult news
and are baffled when entering a school structure. It is a classic battle between the old
school and the new school. This concept is very similar to McLuhan’s theory behind the
rear-view mirror; we glare at the present through a rear-view mirror. We march
backwards into the future. Kids today are trying to do today’s job with yesterday’s tools,
adding to the age of anxiety.