In a 2020 podcast on Multimodality, Professor Tara BRABAZON mentions McLuhan (  https://tarabrabazon.libsyn.com/smash-cut-multimodality). In his blog post, Professor Henry JENKINS mentions him too (https://bit.ly/3mhjA9B) In the same period of time I spoke briefly with Professor Manuel ZACKLAD https://www.zacklad.org/) about my research project (2020) and I also referred to McLuhan, but this time with a sense of humor because I know researchers and scholars like to have references that are up to date with the most recent advanced work in their field. I am a beginner in research though I am an experienced thinker in real life with an overview of the ‘trans-formations’ we endeavor as humans. Therefore I understand very well that one can not agree with the Message: « The Message is the Medium » (McLuhan) and even more nowadays in 2020. 

In 2010 I was conducting an experimentation in an artist residency in France about the idea of transmedia. It came to mind that we still do not know about what is the most important between the message and its medium(s)…

Today, I can confirm that the most important is not to find an answer but to continue to reflect on the idea of the complexity of multimodality and to envision this topic as part of the media literacy that should be taught in early in school.

The ability to consider the question of messages versus media is just enough of a problem to be studied forever and so McLuhan will never be obsolete as it triggers the strings of the gigantic puppet shows we live in. The idea of transmedia that I carry since 10 years is illustrated in my mantra I used to post on social networks:

« transmedia is to the media what contemporary art is to the arts »

It shows that it is very difficult to have easy explanatory access to this concept and that it is as subjective as the appreciation of art. To simplify the comprehension of the transmedia concept I often use the idea of the traditional postal card that one receives via the post office: if you have one chapter of a story on that card, and another chapter in your phone, and another chapter in… That is already a transmedia approach, just so we know…

GRATITUDE Post Scriptum:

Thank you Fernando CARRION for posting in the « Transmedia Education » group we launeched in 2011 and, as usual, I have so much gratitude for Prof. Tara BRABAZON for the extraordinary work that she provides for all Ph.D. candidates, students and supervisors. The generosity and the accuracy that emanates from Tara’s work is very profitable to our times. (October 2020)