Group #1: Blog Post 1

M. McLuhan. (2013). Radio: The Tribal Drum. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. 

I’m going to start our conversation of streaming services as a remediation of radio using Marshall McLuhan's extensions of man in regards to radio as a medium. McLuhan examines how emerging media influences the ways societies interpret and perceive the information conveyed as well as any consequences. McLuhan argues that the content of a medium is always influenced by existing mediums. Mediums are not just extensions of previous media but of ourselves. 

In regards to the radio, McLuhan proposes the theory of the “tribal drum” arguing the aural effects and influences of radio broadcasting on society and culture. McLuhan argues that the transmission of radio has turned society into a single echo chamber embedded into our psyche like no other medium (McLuhan, 2013). We can use McLuhan’s tribal drum to discuss streaming services being a remediation of radio. Radio has evolved with technology as our society values and thrives off the quickness and effortlessness of the medium. To further explain how streaming services are a remediation of radio, consider how radio is the remediation of the human voice. The human voice is the oldest and most comprehensible medium within societies. Oral communication diminishes any restraints on the content of the message being communicated (McLuhan, 2013). As a result, the transmission of the radio’s content and or soundwaves are easily digested by the listener using only one sense - hearing. McLuhan argues that radio should be viewed as a new medium of connection or globalization of ideas rather than a new concept entirely. This is because the radio does not use any new techniques and instead relies on the oldest form of communication - oral culture. The same thing occurred with streaming services. As new emerging conditions in society required communication technology to be updated, streaming services were created. Just like the radio was formed to globalize ideas. Streaming services allow new content, behaviours and relations to be created but the medium as whole is nothing new. 

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