When the Medium Changes the Message

About three years ago, during high school, something happened that helped me truly understand Marshall McLuhan’s famous phrase: “The medium is the message.” We were working on a group project. Well, not a traditional project—it was more like a spontaneous decision to make a short film based on a classmate’s idea.

Because of the story we chose, we needed a large cast, so more than half the class was involved. Our group leader assigned each person a character and a basic storyline, but we were all supposed to write our own scenes.

In our first attempt, we managed to shoot the first scene perfectly. But after that, including me, many of us struggled with writing. Since our group leader was really good at screenwriting, we texted him this message:

“Hey man, we think you should write the scripts too. You’re great at this and you actually enjoy doing it. What do you say?”

Our intention wasn’t to dump the work on him—we just wanted the project to be better. But his response surprised us:

“So now I have to do that too? I’m already doing the whole project. You guys can at least handle that part.”

We were caught off guard. The way our message was misunderstood made us feel a bit bad. I didn’t respond immediately because I didn’t know how to phrase it. Eventually, I wrote something like: “That’s not what we meant…”—but he didn’t reply.

The next day, when we talked face to face at school, everything changed. We said the same words, but this time with eye contact and a warm tone. And just like that, he understood:

“Oh, sorry, I totally misunderstood you guys. I thought you were trying to quit the project or something.”

We laughed it off and cleared the air. That moment taught me something important: The same words can mean completely different things depending on how and where they’re delivered.

McLuhan was right: the way a message is delivered is just as important as the content itself. A handwritten note, a formal email, a WhatsApp message, or a TikTok video—each medium shapes the meaning differently. Things like tone of voice, facial expressions, and body language are missing in text-based communication. And because of that, misunderstandings are much more likely.

That’s why, nowadays, if I want to say something important or sensitive, I try not to do it over text. I prefer to talk face-to-face or at least send a voice message. Because really—when the medium changes, the message does too.

AI Reflection

      While preparing my blog post, I used AI for various tasks such as “explain the assignment”, “give an example”, “translate this sentence into English” and “correct my writing”.  I also used it to check my grammar and fluency, which made the final version more polished and readable. However, I modified some parts in my own style because some of the AI’s phrases felt too artificial. The story and emotions described in the blog post were entirely my own. The misunderstanding I experienced, how I reacted, and how I felt—these were personal and could only be written by me. That’s why the emotional part of the blog was something only I could have expressed.

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