Figure and ground is a concept drawn from Gestalt psychology by media theorist Marshall McLuhan in the early 1970s.
He began to use the terms figure and ground as a way "to describe the parts of a situation"[1] and "to help explain his ideas about media and human communication.
"[1] The concept was later employed to explain how a communications technology, the medium or figure, necessarily operates through its context, or ground.
We should not focus on just the "figure" or the "ground" though, as McLuhan believed that both were equally as important to understanding the full meaning of the situation.
[2] McLuhan believed that to fully grasp the impact of a new technology in regard to figure (medium) and ground (context),[3] one must understand that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
McLuhan's aphorism "The medium is the message" can thus be read as an attempt to draw attention away from a preoccupation with the figure/message to a consideration of the importance of the ground/medium.