When Marshall McLuhan described the experience of opening a newspaper to slipping into a warm bath, he wasn\u2019t being complimentary. His point was that while the newspaper reader, TV viewer or radio listener may believe they are engaging with information, stories and arguments, in reality the form is doing most of the work. The comfort and familiarity of the media environment is not incidental to the experience but central to it.<\/p>\n
McLuhan\u2019s broader argument, developed across books including Understanding Media and The Medium is the Message, was that this unconscious immersion is precisely where media\u2019s real power operates. We argue about what newspapers say or what broadcasters report. We rarely stop to notice what those media do to us simply by existing in the forms they take.<\/p>\n
McLuhan\u2019s ideas fell out of fashion for a while after his death in 1980, dismissed by some as too sweeping or too oracular. They look considerably more prescient now. The psychological architecture of Instagram<\/a>, TikTok<\/a> or X<\/a> deploys manipulation techniques that go far beyond anything McLuhan was observing in the 1960s, while the idea that online media liberates audiences into autonomous consumers of content has been thoroughly discredited. We are not browsing; we are being processed.<\/p>\n But alongside the new tyranny of the algorithm, legacy media in all its forms continues to invest in constructing warm, familiar environments. The specific colour palette of a newspaper. The font that has been used for headlines for decades. The templates repeated across thousands of editions. Some of this is straightforward production efficiency in an industry under severe financial pressure. But a great deal of it is about something more deliberate \u2013 reinforcing a subconscious sense of continuity and reliability, appealing to the parts of the brain that respond positively to familiarity.<\/p>\n What is true of print is equally true of linear broadcasting. Theme tunes, stings, music cues and jingles don\u2019t just fill the gaps between items. They are part of the unspoken contract between broadcaster and audience. They signal not just what programme is coming next but something about who is doing the broadcasting, and what kind of relationship the listener is invited to have with them. In a fragmented media landscape, these audio cues carry even more weight.<\/p>\n Which is why the decision by RT\u00c9<\/a> to implement what it calls a \u201cunified audio identity\u201d across Radio 1<\/a> is about more than just jingles. Most of the negative public reaction since the launch of the new soundscape two weeks ago has concentrated on one change: the abandonment of the Galliard Battaglia trumpet piece that had served as Sunday Miscellany\u2019s theme since 1968. That is understandable. That decision suggests a corporate indifference to the relationship particular programmes have built with their audiences over very long periods of time. Sunday Miscellany is not a vehicle for Radio 1\u2019s brand; the station\u2019s brand, in some meaningful sense, is built partly on Sunday Miscellany\u2019s existence.<\/p>\n There are other missteps. The new Morning Ireland identity attempts something approximating the grandiose signature sounds of American cable news \u2013 all percussion, brass and swelling strings, which sits oddly with the measured, conversational character of the programme. But the problems extend further. There is an uneasy sense throughout of an attempt to appear younger or more modern. This never ends well. <\/p>\n