Media, Culture, Identity—An Analysis of Current Shifts in the Media and Cultural Landscape in the Spirit of Marshall McLuhan

According to Marshall McLuhan, the message of any medium or any technology is the change of scale or pace or pattern that it introduces into human affairs (McLuhan 1968, 22f.). In this respect, McLuhan did not focus on the contents of media but on the cultural implications of the medium, introducing a new perspective to media studies which purports that media are not neutral. Instead they correspond to the cultural code of a society. As a result, the kinds of media which are developed and distributed in a particular society are not due to chance. In this article I would like to discuss what McLuhan's thesis means in concrete terms in today's world. Which developmental trends are emerging in the face of mediatization processes which are moulded by the global spread and use of digital media across countries and social settings? In the rest of the paper I will attempt to respond to current messages in the digital media which relate to culture and the subject.