McLuhan
discusses the extensions of certain body parts through the use of different
forms of media, for example the phone being an extension of the ear and the
phonetic alphabet of the eye. I
found this idea to be very interesting and thought provoking especially when he
said that television is an extension of touch rather than sight. Many people would consider television
to be a visual extension, but he describes it as tactile, because it’s composed
of a bunch of small dots that requires the audience to fill in the spaces
themselves. Because the viewer has
to assume what the images on the screen mean this is encompassing more of their
senses, and thus making them participate more. The audience must think with all of their senses, which immerses
them in the medium even more. This
makes television into a very effective medium, unlike radio where all the
details are presented and the listener is more passive.
McLuhan
classifies the different types of medias by whether they are “hot” or “cool”
which is very interesting. McLuhan
describes mediums that require more participative audiences as “cool” and these
require the use of much more senses as opposed to the “hot” medium. Cool mediums are inclusive because the
audience must assume, or fill in the blanks, like the telephone. Hot mediums give you very detailed
accounts of what’s happening and leaves nothing up to the imagination of the
audience, like radio. I think when
used correctly a cool medium can be extremely effective because, people tend to
learn/understand better when they’re directly included or have the chance to
use their own imagination. This
definitely showed when Nixon ran against Kennedy, and McLuhan described Kennedy
as the first “television” president.
I
think McLuhan brought up an interesting point of how when it comes to
technology we are never really looking towards the future of it, just how it
compared to past technologies. At
the time when the newest technology is introduced it is the best out there, and
the technology before it becomes a fossil of the new. At one time though the old technology was the most advanced
and up to date, but we instead we leave it behind and compare how much better
the present technology is. We
don’t take the present technology and ask “what can we do to better this?” we
just accept it as the most advanced, and only point out its flaws when the next
best thing comes along.
McLuhan
ReplyDelete• McLuhan identifies two types of media - cool and hot – according basically to the technical quality of information they transfer and the level of audience participation. Television is cool medium, because it presents only low definition image and the viewer has to constantly interact and fill out the information gaps of blurry images. Can we say the same about today’s HD televisions (especially when their name includes the words “high definition” in opposition to McLuhan’s “LD” TVs)? I would say that television became hot medium, especially with all the technical enhancements like home cinema sound and huge screens, when the viewer just lays back end enjoys detailed images. TV experience can sometimes resemble a visit to the cinema and film is hot medium. However, I would argue that home cinema screening is much more tactile, interactive and all senses involving experience than old TV’s broadcast. I find McLuhan’s media differentiation a little forceful. According to him, radio is hot medium, but what about the regions with bad reception or radio stations with ancient equipment – could we compare the coolness of television with such radio then? Listeners have to strain their ears (and minds) there as much as viewers their eyes.
• McLuhan introduces the idea of global telepathy, universal consciousness possible with the help of computer. Today, internet resembles this idea the most. Via internet, people have instant access to information and accumulated knowledge of man. Even more important are social networks (Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram etc.), which connect people’s voices and images and enable the users to react to them and enhance them in whichever way they want (memes, gifs etc.). Internet can thus be labeled as cool medium that offers a lot of (not only) tactile participation. It connects people from all over the world not only via words and images, but almost physically – MMO’s like World of Warcraft are examples of that. People virtually interact with each other and their acts and decisions are stored on computer disks, which constitute a part of universal consciousness (human brains are copied “into internet” and shared there). McLuhan envisions global telepathy working without words. Technology has yet to get there completely, but computer simulation and virtual realities represent promising future. Computer can read our body movements or neural reactions, translate them into computer language and then back for other people to recognize (for example CGI and the character of Gollum). Maybe one day we will be able to connect to internet directly with our minds and communicate without words like telepaths.
• The notion of global village is connected with probable creation of social inequalities. I don’t think that all people will ever be able to be a part of global village, because the essential condition of becoming a member is to have an access to specific technology (mostly computer and internet connection). Now and in the near future, global village could be built only from the countries of the Western world and not even every Western man, woman or child owns a device with internet connection. McLuhan describes electronic age as a universal community, where people live in unity, participate and are involved in developing the society. However people without the access to “global village” would be ostracized and alienated from the rest of the community, which are exactly the negative aspects of mechanical, literary age – alienation and fragmentation.