When McLuhan Met Simmel: Form is the Content, Medium is the Message

The relationship between form (the structure of a work or medium used) and content (the essence of a work or message conveyed) has garnered much attention from researchers in various fields including sociology, communication, art, film, religion, and philosophy. Among these researchers, Georg Simmel in sociology and Marshall McLuhan in communication provide a resourceful conceptual framework to inform students of communication technologies.

One of Georg Simmel’s most notable ideas is how social forms dictate content produced in social interaction (Simmel, 1950, 1972). Social forms such as weddings, funerals, or press conferences with athletic coaches and players, mandate the content of the interaction. In a wedding, the father of the bride, the groom and the best man, all make wedding speeches that are sweet, sentimental, and humorous. In a funeral service, the eulogy delivered is always heartfelt and in praise of the deceased. Dealing with the media, coaches and players all observe the rules to be positive and optimistic, and never air the dirty laundry in public by throwing other coaches and teammates “under the bus.” Noticing how social forms informed the content of interaction (see Fig. 1), Simmel urged researchers to set out to identify forms of social interaction.