Week 2 10-12 SB

Welcome once again to my NCT blog for my Tutorial, this being blog II.

This week we have been tasked to choose one issue from either the lecture or any readings to which we should discuss. I have read the first four chapters of the textbook and one aspect that intriguied me was Marshall McLuhan's concept of 'hot' and 'cool' media. I found this interesting because McLuhan segregates the media of his time and places them in 2 catagories, 'hot' which means the medium is full of information and has less involvement for the audience, and 'cool' which means the content is not full of information and has a greater sensory particapation.
But I thought, what if today's ever expanding mediums were placed into these 2 categories?, or if the the 'old' mediums still belong in their categories?, and if they possibly cross into both categories.

Basically, 'hot' media contains radio, film & photography. These mediums are often content driven, and require a low participation. Film's and photo's are visually stimulating and does not require the audience to fill in any details, radio does the same with sound.
'Cool' media contains such mediums as television, cartoons/comics & the telephone and require a high participation because the audience would have to fill in details such as in a cartoon where the visual detail is low or with a TV where the amount of information is of a lesser amount than with a film.

So what McLuhan is suggesting is that different media create different levels of participation, but today, some 30 years after the passing of McLuhan does his media theory still apply?. Current media has changed alot in the past 10-15 years with new media such as the mobile phone and internet dominating today's culture. The Mobile phone, which is the new and improved telephone carries many mediums. Todays mobile's have the ability to watch live TV and download & listen to music. The Internet has the ability to listen to the radio, download TV programs & movies (naughty!) as well as many other things so it can be argued that the internet could be a 'warm' medium.

Television often has movies present- whether it be free-to-air or on pay-TV where there is channels that are dediccated to films. So does this mean that TV now crosses into the 'hot' category because it shows films? Or does it still have a 'cool' feel to it because you don't have to watch the movie like you do in a cinema?

What does the media of the future hold and what category will they fall under?, we shall see.

That's my blog for this week, I hope it ain't boring.
Shane