Community Is The Message: Viewing Networked Public Displays Through Mcluhan'S Media Theory

Networked public displays are envisioned to become a new communication medium for the twenty-first century with potentially the same impact on the society as the radio, TV or the Internet. To better understand the capabilities and limitations of such a new medium, we can turn to the field of media theory, and in particular to the work of Marshall McLuhan, who in the 1960s coined the slogan "the medium is the message". In McLuhan's theory, the key to understanding how a medium impacts society is to understand the interplay between the figure-the medium-and the ground-the context in which it operates. In order to understand what processes lead to successful engagement with this new medium we can useMcLuhan's "rear-view mirror" metaphor and analyze the causes leading to attachment and engagement with public spaces. McLuhan also put forward the "four laws of media"-the tetrad-to group and describe both a medium's impact on society and its influence on other media. In this chapter I connect McLuhan's media theory-figure and ground, the rear-view mirror, and the tetrad-with research on interactions and processes in public space, in order to better understand why networked public displays are suited to be a communication medium that connects place-based communities and stimulates community interaction.