A dictionary of Marshall McLuhan’s quotations

Strangely, it is just at the moment when the user becomes the public at large that a change in the attitude to the medium takes place. Until the moment of inclusiveness it is natural for elites and specialist taste and preferences to be accepted by the users of the medium. At the moment, however, that the entire public is involved in the medium, there occurs the cry of “What the public wants.” It is as if some flip or reversal occurred which enabled the user to say with emphatic voice, “I am the content of this medium.”
“Putting on the Media” (1971), p 8
Year: 1971
Chapter: User as Content
Compiled by William Kuhns
© 2026, The Estate of Marshall McLuhan