How Does The Medium Is Not The Message Affect TV Adaptation?

I get excited thinking about this because it flips a tidy slogan on its head and forces you to look at movies like living, breathing conversations. When people say the medium is not the message they’re pushing back against Marshall McLuhan’s claim in 'Understanding Media' and insisting that content, context, intention, and audience interpretation matter just as much — sometimes more — than the technology carrying the film. For me this idea pushes film theory away from technological determinism and back toward things like ideology, authorship, and spectator experience. It’s why debates about preservation, translation, and censorship are as important as debates about 35mm versus digital. Bazin’s love of the long take in 'What is Cinema?' sits beside Eisenstein’s montage; both are medium-sensitive, but when you say the medium is not the whole message you allow for social context, reception history, and industry conditions to reshape meaning. Practically, that perspective opens film studies to adaptation studies, fan practices, and platform effects: a scene streamed on a phone while someone scrolls Twitter functions differently than the same scene in a dark theater. I tend to think of films as ecosystems — medium helps form them, but it’s not the sole storyteller — and that complexity is why I keep going back to old movies with new eyes.

I get excited whenever this topic comes up — there’s something delicious about watching a neat slogan like 'the medium is the message' get stretched, probed, and sometimes politely shoved aside by smart people with microphones. If you want shows that go deep into why the medium isn’t everything, start with 'On the Media'. They consistently interrogate how institutions, business models, and content interact; episodes that interview scholars or platform critics will make you think more about power, profit, and human decisions rather than deterministic medium-centric narratives. If you like things a bit more narrative, '99% Invisible' and 'Radiolab' are great because they show how form and content co-create meaning. '99% Invisible' will break down design and infrastructure; 'Radiolab' will show you how storytelling choices (not just the channel) change the message. For explicit theoretical pushback, search for podcast interviews with scholars like danah boyd, Tarleton Gillespie, or Sherry Turkle — many mainstream shows have hosted them. Lastly, if you want an academic angle without the dry vibe, check 'New Books' segments focused on media, tech, and culture. Pair those listens with a quick read of 'The Shallows' by Nicholas Carr or 'Alone Together' by Sherry Turkle and you’ll have a rounded sense of why the message still matters.

Some days I sit with a dog-eared volume of 'Akira' and marvel at how the paper, the ink, and the rhythm of panels feel like part of the story itself. To me, saying 'the medium is not the message' can absolutely apply to manga, but only if you accept that manga is both container and performance. The content — characters, plot beats, themes — can travel across media, but how I perceived Kaneda's cityscape in print versus an animated adaptation was different because the medium framed my experience. When I read on a cramped commuter train, gutters and page turns set a heartbeat; when I read on a tablet, pinch-zooming changes how I linger on a face. Black-and-white linework leaves room for my imagination; color pages in a collected edition supply a different tone. The medium doesn't erase the message, but it colors, paces, and sometimes even alters it. So yes, the medium can be 'not the message' in the sense that, occasionally, the story's core survives translation across formats. But in practice, for manga storytelling, medium and message dance together — one rarely acts alone.

There are mornings when I wake up scrolling through a feed and I feel like the old slogan 'the medium is the message' gets flipped on its head. Back when that phrase was coined, people were trying to point out how the delivery system shapes meaning — and that's still true — but today I think writers need to treat the medium as one ingredient, not the whole recipe. In practice that means I write imagining three things at once: the platform’s quirks (short form vs long-form, autoplay vs text), the audience’s context (commuting, skimming between classes, reading at midnight), and the piece’s core impulse (what feeling or insight I want to leave behind). I often type a paragraph on my phone during a bus ride and then expand it on a laptop later; the piece changes, but the core idea keeps surviving the format shifts. That survival is the real message. So for me, the takeaway is pragmatic: craft work that can wear different outfits. Focus on clarity, emotional hooks, and modularity so your words can move across places without losing soul. It’s a small habit that’s made my writing feel more resilient and, surprisingly, more honest.