Saturday, October 18, 2008

Speaking of McCluhan

I've been wondering about how McCluhan would have categorized the blogosphere. Hot or Cold?

Wikipedia, help me out here:

Hot media usually, but not always, provide complete involvement without considerable stimulus. For example, print occupies visual space, uses visual senses, but can immerse its reader. Hot media favour analytical precision, quantitative analysis and sequential ordering, as they are usually sequential, linear and logical. They emphasize one sense (for example, of sight or sound) over the others. For this reason, hot media also include radio, as well as film, the lecture and photography.
Cool media, on the other hand, are usually, but not always, those that provide little involvement with substantial stimulus. They require more active participation on the part of the user, including the perception of abstract patterning and simultaneous comprehension of all parts. Therefore, according to McLuhan cool media include television, as well as the seminar and cartoons. McLuhan describes the term "cool media" as emerging from jazz and popular music and, in this context, is used to mean "detached." (See: CBC Radio Archives)
This concept appears to force media into binary categories. However, McLuhan's hot and cool exist on a continuum: they are more correctly measured on a scale than as dichotomous terms.
Blogging can be both Hot (reading passively) and Cold (interacting by responding), depending on your individual choice. And if you are choosing to be a passive reader of an interactive medium, does that make it a Hot medium?

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