Microphones and Speakers Dilute and Diffuse the Liturgy

A friend of mine and I were once discussing Marshall McLuhan’s famous quip that the “the medium is the message” and how it applied to the introduction of microphones into churches in the mid-twentieth century.

One of McLuhan’s more salient general observations is the naivete with which humans stumble into the use of new media, without realizing the potential consequences incurred. For example, before reading McLuhan, one might think of the microphone as merely amplifying the natural voice—no more than a tool of convenience to enlarge the auditory range of the human voice.

But McLuhan argues that the microphone produces a synthetic version of the voice, analogous to processed foods: it is the human voice artificially othered, removed from its place and made omnipresent, with a dynamic disproportion that overwhelms other sounds (and silences). It’s the “placeless voice of God” phenomenon: the one with the mic ends up sounding from everywhere and nowhere (because of speakers all around), and at the volume of Big Brother (or Big Sister).

To feature microphones in the Mass, therefore, is to introduce an element that is alien to the ancient and sacred nature of the Mass. It is to change, drastically, the proportionality and aesthetics of the Mass. The microphone undermined the atmosphere of sound resonance that McLuhan thought essential to the old Latin Mass.

One might not mind the microphone’s being used for homilies, though this undoubtedly weakens the priest’s exhortational capabilities, his need to learn proper elocution and rhetoric. But, sadly, due to the assumption that there will always be loudspeakers, many churches are no longer built to carry sound naturally. Instead, they’re built around the microphone, almost as if it is the center of sonic gravity—as if the real presence has given way to the real audience.

A visual analogy would be the use of dropdown screens inside churches, spotlighting hymn lyrics, or, even worse, showing the altar (as one can see at St. Patrick’s in New York City, where screens litter the columns up and down the side aisles). One notices that even if people could see the altar perfectly without the screen, they can’t help but look at the screen. It’s almost like an idol whose thrall cannot be resisted. The screen pulls the viewer into itself and out of the reality around him—a phenomenon we’ve all noticed with smartphones, whose users often seem to be “glued” to them regardless of where they are or what they are doing.

Loudspeakers do something similar, in that it is nearly impossible to do or think of anything else as long as the amplified voice is booming its message. Put simply: when the words are coming through the speaker, there is no room, literally or metaphorically, for anything else.

McLuhan thought that inserting the microphone into the TLM prior to the Novus Ordo had put people into a synthetic sound bubble and made them crave more clarity. Rendered through the microphone, Latin prayers suddenly sounded annoying to human ears. These prayers are, of course, addressed first of all to God, and if those around hear them and understand, all the better, but by no means is this a “make or break” condition. After all, people pray in different ways; sometimes they know what an oft-repeated Latin prayer means, sometimes they read it in their missal, sometimes they are praying in their own words interiorly, which the predominantly quiet atmosphere (prior to mics and speakers) made ample room for.