McLuhan is well known for coining the phrase, “the medium is the message” (7). By medium, he means “any extension of ourselves”, which could be a form of technology, newspapers, even a light bulb. He finds that the medium is the message because, “it is the medium that shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and action” (9). This statement leads McLuhan to break down medium into hot and cold. Hot medium he defines as high definition, high information, requiring low participation, and excluding the user (ex: TV, movies). Hot medium is specialized and repetitive, something that McLuhan believes “will serve to fragment a tribal structure” (24). On the other end of the spectrum is cool medium. Cool medium has characteristics opposite that of hot medium; it is low definition, low information, requiring high participation, and includes its user (ex: telephone, speech, and writing).
Along with this separation of mediums, comes a separation of culture. The hot medium can be readily associated with Western culture, known for its want of better, faster technology as soon as possible. Western culture embraces technological change that allows the user to sit back and relax. It is focused on entertainment and ease. McLuhan focuses his cool medium explanation on tribal cultures, which are concerned with oral traditions rather than alphabetic. The tribal culture is set on reacting and participating in action. On the other hand, “Phonetic culture endows men with the means of repressing their feelings and emotions when engaged in action. To act without reacting, without involvement, is the peculiar advantage of Western literate man” (86). Western culture wants involvement in actions, but instead is lost in a pattern of simple absorption and reaction. Unsurprisingly, Western culture has advantages and technologies that tribal cultures would never dream of needing. There is something to be said about the emphasis Western culture puts on constantly moving forward, reacting and never acting. We miss the consequences of medium by being lured away by its content, “For the ‘content’ of a medium is like the juicy piece of meat carried by the burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind” (18). By simply absorbing and reacting, Western culture is easily led astray by news media and corporations
I was definitely pretty conflicted about McLuhan's ideas about the literate culture. On the one hand, yes, Western culture has benefited greatly in leaps of technology, what have we lost in a sense of community? I don't think Western culture is entirely in the right, but neither is an oral society. And his use of hot and cold media as an explanation helped clarify the differences.
ReplyDeleteSoOoOoOooooo yes...hmmm.. McLuhan, what a man. Idk if this si really relevant in regards to your blog, haha, but I was thinking about communication from an evolutionary perspective. We have been passing down knowledge via the oral medium for the majority of our presence on (the glorious) Earth. That being said, our brains are most likely somewhat biologically designed to process oral communication somewhat easier than written communication. I think that McLuhan is correct that we have this new medium of technology with TV and film and that it is passive. However, in a sense they are so attractive to us because they channel that biologically natural way of processing information that oral mediums have.
ReplyDeleteSusie mentioned losing a sense of community. I believe that we have lost a degree of community simply because we are designed to live in tribes or people, not huge cities. We can't possibly meet that meny people and form bonds. Rather the TV communicates a form of cohesion by telling us what is normal that provides a sense of community. We still have friends though and that seems to work out fine. Idk, I'm rambling