The medium changes what your message can do

Marshall McLuhan’s phrase “the medium is the message” directs attention beyond the words themselves: a medium changes the scale, pace, and pattern of communication. The same idea, delivered as a static page, an interactive presentation, or linked data, creates different ways to experience and use it. (McLuhan, Understanding Media)

Consider four ways a communication can grow more useful: multimedia, hypermedia, hypertext, and hyperdata.

Multimedia: make the idea easier to take in#

Multimedia combines forms such as text, diagrams, images, audio, and video, and it is increasingly our preferred modality for consuming information.

The Agent RDF Memory presentation uses narrated slides, diagrams, captions, and written explanations to introduce a system for helping an AI agent remember its operating rules. A viewer can hear the explanation, scan the diagram, or read the captions.

That is more than decoration. It gives people several ways to follow the same idea.

Hypermedia: let people choose where to go#

Hypermedia connects media through navigation. Instead of receiving only a fixed sequence, people can move among related slides, documents, images, or recordings.

The presentation’s previous/next controls make its slides navigable. Captions offer another route through the narration. Add links from a slide to a detailed rule or demonstration, and the presentation can become a gateway to a larger body of material.

Hypertext: connect words to documents#

Hypertext links text and documents. HTML is a common way to represent linked Web pages; HTTP carries requests and responses that retrieve those pages. They work together, but they are not the same thing: HTML describes page content and links; HTTP transports Web resources.

For example, an HTML explanation might link the words “artifact-routing rule” to a Turtle document. A reader can click the link and inspect the rule. In Agent RDF Memory, that is a real file: the rule lives in howto/artifact-routing.ttl. The link makes the document reachable, but it does not, by itself, tell software what kind of relationship the rule has to the page.

Hyperdata: make relationships usable by software#

Hyperdata describes relationships explicitly, so software can query and follow them. RDF represents information as a graph: identifiers name resources, and predicates state how those resources relate.

The presentation gives this example of a rule, written in Turtle. It is an abridged view of the real record, which is lines 345–348 of preferences.ttl:

:step-outputDirs a schema:HowToStep ;
    schema:position 1 ;
    schema:name "Route artifacts to model-specific output directories"@en ;
    rdfs:seeAlso <howto/artifact-routing.ttl> .

This is a compact, inspectable record. It identifies the resource as a schema:HowToStep, gives it a position and name, and relates it to a fuller specification with rdfs:seeAlso.

A person can read the Turtle. An agent can query the rule, follow its link, and retrieve the detailed instructions. The link is both navigational and meaningful to software.

HTTP can deliver the RDF document when its URI is requested. RDF supplies the structured relationships. HTTP is the transport; RDF is the data model.

Follow the example from presentation to action#

1. Narration + diagrams + captions
2.  
3. MULTIMEDIAMore ways to understand
4. add navigation
5. HYPERMEDIAMore paths to explore
6. link text to documents
7. HYPERTEXTMore context to reach
8. describe relationships in RDF
9. HYPERDATAMore meaning software can use
10. follow the rule to its specification
11. A person or agent retrieves the instructions needed for the task

The Agent RDF Memory presentation tells people what the system does. Hypertext can connect that explanation to its files. Hyperdata can identify a particular instruction as a rule, state its purpose, and point to its detailed specification. The agent can then retrieve the relevant guidance instead of relying only on what was said earlier in a conversation.

Put the right medium to work#

The layers complement one another:

• Multimedia gives people more ways to perceive an idea.
• Hypermedia lets them choose a path through connected media.
• Hypertext takes them from a phrase to a related resource.
• Hyperdata makes the relationship explicit enough for software to interpret and use.

Use multimedia to make an explanation clear. Use links to make its supporting material reachable. Use RDF when people and software both need to understand what those links mean.

That is how a communication can move from being seen and heard to being explored, understood, and acted upon—the macro trend in a phrase: the transition from eyeballs to presence.