"New Media"
Out of context: Reply #39
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- sikma0
Hot and cold media
For McLuhan there are two different kinds of media: hot and cold media.
The hot media are those, which have a large influence on humans and its sensous perception. According to McLuhan these media even possess a "destructive strength" . The pioneer of the media ranks the writing, the phon-etic alphabet, the book, the photography and also the radio among this kind of medium. These ob-jects of communication place much data and de-tailed informations at the users disposal, which are mainly concentrate on one sense of the recipient.
It is affected by this, but remains rather passive in the behavior. The cold media have a small influence strength on humans. The reason for this is, that they offer little details and information, and are not optically delightful for humans. To use and understand these media humans must actively deal with these media. McLuhan calls the televi-sion, the telephone or the caricature as example for it. Finally we mention the fact that a medium is not only hot or cold, but must be regarded always standing in a relationship to another medium.