To define the word medium as the message, it is wise to define the two words medium and message appropriately. This will help to eliminate the chances of jumping to conclusions. According to McLuhan, the medium is an extension that occurs in us. For example, a wheel is taken to be an extension to our feet or legs, while a hammer is assumed to be an extension to our arms. Each of these tools enables our body to go an extra mile in doing what it would not have done on its own.
Language medium allows us to extend our thoughts from within ourselves out to other people. Speech is assumed to be an uttering of our own senses which can be considered as a way of sense reversing. This is because our own thought is a result of individual sensory experiences. While our senses enable us to bring the world into our minds, speech, on the other hand, takes out into the world our sensory-shaped minds. Medium is also thought of in another way as a growing medium. That is, it is like fertile soil from where a seed is planted. Therefore, it can be said that a medium is anything from which the emergence of change occurs.
The message is defined as the change in pace, scale, or pattern that innovation or invention brings about into the affairs of a human being. It should be noted that it is not the use or content of innovation but the inter-personal dynamics changes that are brought about by innovation. In this perspective, the message of a theatrical production is depicted in the action and attitude change by the audience. This comes as a result of the medium of play distinct from theatrical production medium in general. Newscast messages are not the stories in the news. Instead, it is the change in attitude towards a particular phenomenon such as crime or even the instillation of fear in public. According to McLuhan, a message allows us to see beyond those apparent things and seek to seer the nonobvious effects that are enhanced, enabled, extended, and accelerated by the new item.
Combining the understanding of the two terms defines a ‘medium is the message’ as the extension of our own selves that arises from the new scale that is established into our own affairs by every extension in us.