Nothing Ever Happens

Marshall McLuhan, the hugely influential guru of the mass media, wrote The Laws of Media Tetrads, which are comprised of four questions- four aspects or effects that apply, without exception, to all creations – intangible or tangible, abstract or concrete – of humankind. They are quoted here from McLuhan’s Laws of Media: The New Science.

First Probe: Enhance
“What does the artifact ENHANCE or intensify or make possible or accelerate? This can be asked concerning a wastebasket, a painting, a steamroller, or a zipper, as well as about a proposition in Euclid or a law of physics. It can be asked about any word or phrase in any language.”

Second Probe: Reverse
“When pushed to the limits of its potential (another complementary action), the new form will tend to reverse what had been its original characteristics. What is the REVERSAL potential of the new form?”

Third Probe: Obsolesce
“If some aspect of a situation is enlarged or enhanced, simultaneously the old condition or unenhanced situation is displaced thereby. What is pushed aside or OBSOLESCED by the new ‘organ’?”

Fourth Probe: Retrieval
“What recurrence or RETRIEVAL of earlier actions and services is brought into play simultaneously by the new form? What older, previously obsolesced ground is brought back and inheres in the new form?”

When applied to any “medium,” these questions help chart the medium’s story arc. The Tetrads help us to understand both the “thing” itself (be it a particular technology, business process, model or concept) and our collective response to it.

The questions are not to be considered sequentially, or in any particular order. The attributes of the four aspects are, in fact, complementary to one another. Their discovery requires careful consideration and observation of the artifact - be it tangible or intangible, an object or a concept - in relation to its context and environment: In McLuhan’s terms, consideration of the figure in relation to its ground.

BONUS for my readers:
Channeling McLuhan
The Wired Interview with the magazine’s patron saint.