Editing Understanding Media (section)

==="Hot" and "cool" media===

In the first part of ''Understanding Media,'' McLuhan also states that different media invite different degrees of participation on the part of a person who chooses to consume a medium. Some media, such as film, were "hot" - that is, they enhance one single [[sense]], in this case [[Visual perception|vision]], in such a manner that a person does not need to exert much effort in filling in the details of a movie image. McLuhan contrasted this with "cool" TV, which he claimed requires more effort on the part of viewer to determine meaning, and [[comics]], which due to their minimal presentation of visual detail require a high degree of effort to fill in details that the cartoonist may have intended to portray. A movie is thus said by McLuhan to be "hot", intensifying one single sense "high definition", demanding a viewer's attention, and a comic book to be "cool" and "low definition", requiring much more conscious participation by the reader to extract value.<ref>''Understanding Media'', p. 22.</ref>

"Any hot medium allows of less participation than a cool one, as a lecture makes for less participation than a seminar, and a book for less than a dialogue."<ref>''Understanding Media'', p. 25.</ref>

Hot media usually, but not always, provide complete involvement without considerable stimulus. For example, print occupies visual space, uses visual senses, but can immerse its reader. Hot media favour analytical precision, quantitative analysis and sequential ordering, as they are usually sequential, linear and logical. They emphasize one sense (for example, of sight or sound) over the others. For this reason, hot media also include [[radio]], as well as [[film]], the [[lecture]] and [[photography]].

Cool media, on the other hand, are usually, but not always, those that provide little involvement with substantial stimulus. They require more active participation on the part of the user, including the perception of abstract patterning and simultaneous comprehension of all parts. Therefore, according to McLuhan cool media include [[television]], as well as the [[seminar]] and [[cartoons]]. McLuhan describes the term "cool media" as emerging from jazz and popular music and, in this context, is used to mean "detached".<ref>See [http://archives.cbc.ca/IDC-1-74-342-1818/people/mcluhan/clip4 CBC Radio Archives]</ref>