Communications scholar Marshall McLuhan’s prescient 1964 bestseller, Understanding Media, argued that “the media is the message,” in which the technology overtakes the spoken words it transmits. In fact, the core messages can get garbled if the media can’t keep up with the intended meaning. Ironically, the media echo chamber initially misunderstood key messages from Salesforce founder Marc Benioff about the safety context of the San Francisco-based Dreamforce extravaganza, as well as the nature of the technology it was showcasing.
To many people, the firestorm that quickly engulfed Benioff after a buzzy New York Times interview this month seems deserved—just another Big Tech CEO pusillanimously rebranding their politics to gain the favor of President Trump and seeming to endorse a declaration of martial law. A Bloomberg columnist went even further, calling the comments “more than the general bootlicking.” An AdWeek contributor declared, “Dance with politics and you often lose half the market. Sometimes all of it.”
