Media: The Extensions of Man

Marshall McLuhan is an author who proposes that the media, not the content that they carry, should be the focus of study . He suggests that the medium affects the society in which it plays a role mainly by the characteristics of the medium rather than the content. He propose that through his book entitle "Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man"  made 1964. Marshall McLuhan developed the idea of using tetrads to apply a consistent mode of analysis to different media . Tetrad is basically examining the effects on society of any technology or medium by dividing its effects into four categories and displaying them simultaneously. The tetrad is therefore a grid with four sections.

Diagram 1 : The Tetrad

The effects of media can be viewed in four different ways and aspect which is enhances, reverse into , retrieves and obsolesces.Extension turns an element of ground into figure or further intensifies something already figure.Obsolescence renders a former situation impotent by displacement where the figure returns to ground.Retrieval puts something long obsolete back into service where the ground becomes figure through the new situation.Reversal involves dual action simultaneously, as figure and ground reverse position and take on a complementary configuration. Figure becomes ground by overload.  What can i understand is that, media effects us by extending our body , mind and being.As they extend some of our human ability, they simultaneously obsolesce some other form of experience. Then, they retrieve and enhance a sense or skill that was obsolesced earlier and the current media do not stimulate.When being pushed to their limit, they have a reverse effect, where they are producing an opposite or complementary forms of effect. The first law according to Marshall McLuhan’s Law of media is about what social media allow us to do.Next,  is displaced thereby the second among the four laws is what does it make obsolete? For example paper organizing tool to do post its instead of handwriting.The third law is that social media will retrieve some aspects of human society that has been pushed aside or medium from the past.The fourth law represents what happens when medium is pushed to its limit. In conclusion,  the Law of media developed by McLuhan is used as a tool to examine the form of effects that different mediums and technologies produce.