Media studies

[joswinjohn Newbie Member Find all posts View Profile Close joswinjohn]

sybmm sem3 media studies notes

[Kavita P Newbie Member Find all posts View Profile Close Kavita P]

Re: Media studies

Marshall McLuhan writes of ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ forms of media in his book, Understanding Media. In the chapter “Media Hot and Cold” he explains a ‘hot’ medium as an extension of a physical sense (such as the eyes) in “high-definition.” That is, an extension of a physical sense that is dense with information. For instance, McLuhan gives the examples of the image and text as ‘hot’ visual mediums. They are ‘hot’ because they provide an abundance of visual data to the eyes and leave little room for interpretation and further thought on the part of the audience. The delivery of information is straightforward. On the other hand, examples given by McLuhan of ‘cool’ visual mediums are the television and the cartoon, which are extensions of a physical sense in “low-definition.” These forms of media possess very little information and consequently require from the audience a higher degree of participation. Other non-visual forms of ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ media mentioned by McLuhan are the radio and the telephone, respectively. McLuhan cites the example of American behavior towards radio as entertainment as explaining his classifying it as a ‘hot’ medium. Conversely, because so much has to be filled in by the listener, the telephone is classified as a ‘cool’ medium, requiring more participation in order to “get” the correct information. The basic idea is: “the hot form excludes, the cold one includes.” A hot medium allows for less participation and is therefore more difficult to learn from than a cool medium. An example of this is the difference between a seminar (cold) and a lecture (hot). You learn more from the seminar because it allows for more participation.

[farhidshah Newbie Member Find all posts View Profile Close farhidshah]

Re: Media studies

This is my project. On Cultural Studies. Am I a genuine student of BMM and this will be veey helpful to me. Please let me download files and access them for studying.