The Medium is the Message

I found the principles of hot medium and cold medium to be very intriguing, mostly because I never viewed media in that way before. I first I viewed the premise as incorrect – as if I have any expertise on the matter – especially when McGluhan asserts, “ speech is a cool medium of low definition because so little is given and so much has to be filled in by the listener” (23). Initially I viewed this as wrong because I though of my Aunt – a voracious talker who goes into great detail about her friend’s sister’s ex-husband’s child and whatever profound life event is going on in this person’s (who we do not know) life. However, upon thinking about it more, I realized that regardless of the depth of detail she gave me, I could only imagine it through my own lens of experience. Hot medium, by comparison, does “not leave so much to be filled in or completed by the audience” (23). Instead, they provide a steady visual – in the case of a movie - of the message. This visual relies not the audience’s prior experiences, but on what the storyteller wants the audience to experience through the visual. In order to better understand the elements of “cool media” versus “hot media,” I did some elementary exploratory research. I came across a bullet-pointed chart displaying elements of these differing mediums. I have recreated the chart for this blog:

Material adapted from David Bobbitt, Wesleyan College, "Teaching McLuhan: Understanding Media"

Of the readings, I connected most to Kress’ “Literacy in the New Media Age,” in particular, his section on “Into new contexts for writing.” In it, he discusses not only the profund changes that have shaped technology in the last twenty or so years, but also how these changes have led to a “...new distribution of the means of access to the production and reception of messages in the public domain” (Kress 17). In other words, technology has created an open platform that has enable all people, particularly those traditionally lacking power, to develop and promote their voice. For example, I think about the role of social influencers in today society. Five years ago this would be an unheard of occupation – yet know teens are being paid by companies to promote services and/or goods via their widespread platform. Once, “the power to produce messages for dissemination in the public domain lay with the few who had access to and control of the media for disseminating messages” (17). But not anymore.

The impact of this open domain through technology has led to a radical and influential change. Kress writes, “...the potentials of these technologies imply a radical social change, a redistribution of semiotic power, the power to make and disseminate meaning” (17). Think, for instance, the ways that Emma Gonzalez and David Hogg used their skills in social media to influence the #NeverAgain movement. Because of the “...new distribution of the means of access to the production and reception of the message in the public domain,” movements such as what came out of the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas tragedy and rise of the #NeverAgain movement and March for Our Lives were able to take form in quick and influential ways. Furthermore these students, having grown up in the era of technology literacy – understand the profound impact of not just words, but also poignant captions and images. Finally, we are already seeing the outcomes of Kress’ assertion that

"Writing will more and more become organized and shaped by the logic of the image-space of the screen. This is one inescapable effect of the potentials of the screen, and the technology of new media” (20).

Twitter is a great example of this, in it’s a attempt to promote a word economy at a certain number of characters – although they have increased the limit. Instagram is probably an even better example of how users can capture a message through an image and provide a short and catchy caption. Now, more than ever, consumers are engaged more by the influence of a specific image than by reading a lengthy alphabetic text – although that form still holds an impact for those willing to take the time to consume and think about it. Regardless, our media has adapted itself to the “inescapable effect” and need for visual imagery to promote its message.

In regards to “the medium is the message” excerpt, I struggled with the abstractness of what was being described. I think this is mostly do to the writing of multiple comparisons on top of each other, such as when McGluhan writes, “the content of writing is speech, just as the written word is the content of print, and print is the content of the telegraph” (8). When I sit down and think about it critically, I can understand the message, but it was confusing to me the first few times I read it through. That being said, I really like the phrase “the medium is the message” because I think it conveys the importance of how select mediums impact and interact with consumers in different ways. It also directly relates to what Gunther Kress was saying when he wrote on how a particular layout changed textual structures, and therefore how we interpret the text (16

In conclusion, I think it is important that we critically reflect on the following questions in terms of how we consume and dissect media:

• How does acknowledging, “the medium is the message” affect the way that we consume different types of media?

• How does understanding of “hot mediums” and “cold mediums” inform our multimodal choices?

• In what ways are technologies promoting radical social change? How does the different mediums used (journalistic articles, twitter debates, photography) change the way we view a particular issue?