Lucrécia D´Alessio Ferrara 316 3. Media: Consented consensus Since McLuhan, the media have been understood as extensions of man and, in this sense, the following statement is expressive: In a culture such as ours, long accustomed to divid- ing and shattering all things as a means of control- ling them, it sometimes comes as a bit of a shock to remind us that, for practical and operational purposes, the medium is the message. This simply means that the social and personal consequences of any medium - that is, of any of the extensions of ourselves - result from the new pattern introduced into our lives by a new technology or extension of ourselves [...] The restructuring of human associa- tion and work has been shaped by the technique of fragmentation, which is the essence of machine technology. The opposite is the essence of automa- tion technology. It is integral and decentralizing in-depth, just as the machine was fragmentary, centralizing, and superficial in structuring human relationships (McLuhan, 1969, p. 21 e 22). Therefore, as an extension of man, adherence to the media is inherent in an obligatory consensus of automatic con- sent. Through the same subtle and, at the time of the author, somewhat controversial observation, this consented consensus is a consequence of the media and imposed by its very nature which, once consented to, becomes the law of ways of thinking. However, it is understood that the medium does not only refer to the technological characteristics of a new environment but, on the contrary, refers to the new relational environment created and proposed using new technology, i.e. all media are extensions of man, insofar as they offer him other environmental patterns and teach him another way of living and surviving. Environments are mental extensions. The media are extensions of man, but they offer him another way of living, so captivating that he considers them a natural consequence of the media: “The artist is the person who invents the means to bridge between biologi-
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