Senior Communications Strategist and C-suite Advisor - across multiple industries. Storyteller and Message Architect. Author. Award-winning NYU Professor.
Sixty years ago Marshall McLuhan made the bold suggestion that the Medium is the Message. I wonder what he'd say about today's media-fragmented society? To simplify McLuhan's theory: He argued the way we communicate a message (the channel) has a direct impact on how that message is received. In The Wall Street Journal this morning Suzanne Vranica writes about how brands are moving away from television advertising and redirecting those dollars to mediums that are more relevant to targeted audiences like TikTok. It's clear that Prime Time television in the U.S. is no longer "must see TV" but when advertisers leave it then decline is inevitable. The same thing happened to another medium - newspapers. In a mass media world, should the medium be dictated by what entertains the masses most? I worry that if we continue to go down that road the result will be little more than dumb show and noise. It all makes me think about this Edward Albee quote from "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf": "Dashed hopes and good intentions. Good, better, best, bested” In this instance, prime time TV was once good, then cable came along and was better, eventually we had streaming and social media and some thought that was best. In the end maybe all it has amounted too is the message (and maybe truth) getting bested. If you want to be part of the conversation on attaining Relevance with key stakeholders subscribe to The Relevance Report. Subscribe on LinkedIn https://lnkd.in/dqccYc9z #BeRelevant #PublicRelations
