Marshall McLuhan’s
The Medium is the Message was a very
rough reading with very hard concepts to grasp. His chapter on
Understanding Media: The Extensions of
Man states various concepts and ideas concerning different media that he
categorizes into two subgroups (cold media or hot media), not solely based on how
the material is being presented but based on how users react to the material
itself. However, through the development and advancement of technology, some of
McLuhan’s concepts regarding various media such as photography, has been
outdated, for though McLuhan’s concepts and ideas remain unchanged, the world
around us is constantly evolving and ultimately so is media.
Categorizing media
into subgroups like that of McLuhan’s is one that will need constant revising and
editing. For as time changes, so does our interactions with media, how we
preserve them and how they impact us. Take for instance photography. McLuhan
refers to photography as a hot medium, which he defines to be mechanical, the expansion
of space, low in audience participation, exclusive and detribalizing. These
various definitions and categorizing of hot medium may have worked well for photography
back in McLuhan’s time, however in this time period photography is far less
mechanical and exclusive than he describes it to be. In this day in age, taking
a photograph no longer requires a professional but can be done by an ordinary,
unprofessional, inexperience person. Moreover, almost all people today have a
device readily on hand that can capture an image, illustrating that photography
is more inclusive. Furthermore, McLuhan’s concepts limit photography to low
audience participation, which in 2015 is quite an inadequate
categorization.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMEC_HqWlBY
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