Blog Post #4 - McLuhan's Hot and Cool Media Theory - By Sarah Humphreys


Blog Post #4 - McLuhan's Hot and Cool Media Theory - By Sarah Humphreys

In this blog post, I have decided to discuss McLuhan's hot and cool media theory. I found this theory particularly interesting when discussing it in class this past Wednesday, as this understanding of media motivates new ways of thinking about mediums and their reshaping of social life. McLuhan's theory states that hot media possesses high intensity, meaning it demands viewers' attention, is filled with data and presents information leaving little room to be filled by an audience. Examples of hot media include but are not limited to, print, photographs, films, and books. Whereas, cool media provides less data, low definition, and embodies high levels of participation by the audience. Examples of cool media include but are not limited to the telephone, cartoons, orality, and television. 

This theory is designed to expose the "experiences and effects of how we use media" (Herman, 2022), introducing new ways to view media by the characteristics in which they possess. I believe there is room to debate what media forms are placed in these categories as everyone uses and perceives media characteristics differently, as media forms are dynamic, providing different meanings to different users, leading to a deeper analysis of various media forms.  However, McLuhan mentions how over time with technological development and societal changes media forms can "heat up". This suggests that cool media could be determined as hot media with advancements in its characteristics. For example, television is not used the same way it was used during its onset. Family homes have multiple televisions now and streaming services have allowed television to be consumed in vast ways. Suggesting that television has heated up over time. 


Discussion Questions 

1. Do you believe hot and cool media theory has led you to view media differently? 

2. Do you think categorizing media into two groups of hot vs. cool is too vague?

3. Would you argue that media can be interpreted in different ways, leaving room to argue McLuhan's categorizations of what media is deemed as hot vs. cool? 


Comments

  1. Ashley Di PernaDecember 2, 2022 at 11:51 AM

    Great blog post. I do believe that my experience with hot and cold media is fundamentally different. When viewing hot media, I feel as though I am absorbing information, while viewing cold media feels as though the information is simply present, but not necessarily getting engrained into my head the way it was if it was hot media. I do believe that the two binary categories of hot and cold are too vague. Within a group of media, each individual piece of media is going to be more hot or cold, depending on how mentally challenging the content is. For example, both The Godfather and The Emoji Movie are in the category of film, but I would consider The Godfather to be a better example of hot media than The Emoji Movie. This is because The Godfather has themes, cinematography, foreshadowing and other elements that require its viewing to be more high intensity.

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  2. Noah BookerDecember 16, 2022 at 2:59 PM

    Hey Sarah, Great input! I really appreciate the thought behind your questions. In Regards to your second question, I would say that the hot/cool scale in quite open ended, but is suitable for its descriptive purposes. It is not a concrete two categories, but instead different mediums hold more definition by their association to the two ends of the scale.

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