[Ads-l] Update: The medium is the message (Marshall McLuhan, May 5, 1958)

[Shapiro, Fred]

Thanks for posting this, Garson, this is a wonderful discovery.

Fred Shapiro


________________________________
From: ADSGarson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, August 31, 2022 8:23 AM
To: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at listserv.uga.edu>
Cc: Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu>
Subject: Update: The medium is the message (Marshall McLuhan, May 5, 1958)

Andrew McLuhan, the grandson of Marshall McLuhan, notified me of a new
1958 citation for the saying in the subject line.  To verify the
citation I contacted the University of British Columbia, Rare Books &
Special Collections. Librarians kindly sent me the pertinent scans.

Marshall McLuhan’s 1958 speech contained two versions of the saying.
The first instance used the plural words “media” and “messages”:

[ref] 1958, Radio in the Future of Canada: A National Conference, Held
in Vancouver, Canada on May 5 to 9, 1958, Article: Introduction of
Professor Marshall McLuhan, Start Page 4, Quote Page 4 and 6,
Sponsored by: British Columbia Association of Broadcasters and the
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
(Verified with scans from University of British Columbia Library, Rare
Books & Special Collections) [/ref]

[Begin excerpt from page 4]
The media are the messages, they are not conveyor belts of messages.
In the long run it is radio that is the message, and not what a radio
program content happens to be at any given day, or year. In the long
run, it is photography that is the meaning and the message, not the
picture of somebody or something.
[End excerpt from page 4]

The second instance of the saying in McLuhan’s’ speech matched the
popular version of the expression:

[Begin excerpt from page 6]
Print, by permitting people to read at high speed and, above all, to
read alone and silently, developed a totally new set of mental
operations. What I mentioned earlier becomes very relevant here: the
medium is the message. The medium of print is the message, more than
any individual writer could say.
[End excerpt from page 6]

Fred Shapiro’s entry on this topic in “The New Yale Book of
Quotations” presented an excellent 1959 citation. Fred also pointed to
a precursor expression: “The method is the message”. I found some new
early citations for this precursor.

The updated version of the Quote Investigator article is available now:
https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fquoteinvestigator.com%2F2022%2F08%2F11%2Fmedium-message%2F&data=05%7C01%7Cfred.shapiro%40yale.edu%7C2f28c6e847754c9d38f808da8b4ba5e2%7Cdd8cbebb21394df8b4114e3e87abeb5c%7C0%7C0%7C637975454266485291%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=rmrFMG8ShauWlB4JTsVT8JAgdRSLGXxPEPYZ9xbdeJc%3D&reserved=0

Feedback welcome
Garson O’Toole




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