The LAWS OF MEDIA TETRADS

"We shape our tools
and thereafter our tools shape us."

-Marshall McLuhan
Canadian Professor and theorist Marshall McLuhan was the one who thought of the INTERNET making "global village" possible even before the Internet was discovered. Also famous for THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE theory, McLuhan deveoped the media TETRAD which can be used as a tool in understanding the interaction between people and media. The TETRAD is anchored on four significant questions:

(1) What does the medium enhance/extend?
(2) What does it make obsolete?
(3) What does it retrieve from the past? and
(4) What does it reverse into if it gets "over-extended?"

How do we apply the TETRAD to the Internet as a new medium?

1. The Internet enhances communication among the people around the world.
2. The Internet makes snail mail obsolete. E-mail offers faster correspondence.
3. The Internet retrieves the use of text, either in research or simply communication with other people.
4. The Internet, once "over-extended," reverses into loss of privacy.

The LAWS OF MEDIA theory explains how we, as media consumers, act and react towards the media.

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