Midterm Exam Question 3

McLuhan used a model with four elements surrounding the term MEDIUM. Touching on the four elements, describe how this model can help us in interpreting social media.

Marshall McLuhan states that media is a concise tetrad of media effects. Considering social media as the medium we can answer the following questions, what does the medium enhance? What doe the medium make obsolete? What does the medium retrieve that had been obsolesced earlier? And what does the medium flip into when pushed to extremes?
Social media has enhanced the amount of communication between people on the web by creating more platforms for conversation. As well it has created two-way, multi-level and multi-directional (networked) communication. Social media makes face-to-face contact obsolete as well as snail mail. Why go and meet someone or send him or her a letter in the mail when you can send instant information over many social media applications? It also retrieves the idea of individual voice and focuses on individual opinions, not everyone has to be an expert in the subject matter in which they speak. Lastly social media flips the normal top down flow of information and allows a multi-level, multi-dimensional platform for information sharing.