McLuhan and Media The title of Marshall McLuhans first article, The Medium Is The Message, in fact summarizes

the whole article. With this statement McLuhan tells that the message which is trying to be transmitted cannot be analyzed apart from the transmitter systems and methods. According to McLuhan, we shape our mediums and mediums shape us in return. At this point our message becomes less important than how it is being transmitted. For instance, if you are watching a movie, a documentary or a romantic comedy, you are receiving the message and their creators are sending the messages in the same way. So as McLuhan points out these in his article, clearly, the word how becomes more important than the word what when it comes to share a message. Marshall McLuhan makes a certain division for the media in his article Media Hot and Cold. He divides media into two groups and describes that media can either be hot or cold. According to the article, hot media has high definition and cold media has low definition. He defines these both groups as they are the opposite of each other. He says that in a hot media, less participation is required from the audience, but in a cold media audiences participation has a very major role. In cold media the audiences participation is important because the given information is much more less than hot media and it is less detailed. The message can be received with a certain effort. On the other hand hot media is full of information and details. That is why the receivers, the audiences do not have to show such an effort while receiving the message. The media, divided into two parts as hot and cold, affects the audiences differently. As electronic media and printed media are thought, they obviously belong to different groups. Printed media is considered as hot media, on the other hand electronic media is considered as cold media. The reason of this distinction is that in printed media lots of information and
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details are given, and the audience can get the message easily. In electronic media such as television, telephone or, according to our period of time, internet needs the audiences participation to be well received. The information is not enough and they are not very detailed. For the missing details and information, the audience is needed so they can complete them. McLuhan has made a clear and very informative division according to media. The fact that method being more important than the content gives an opportunity to see from a completely different point of view on media and on most of other things in life. Asl Zeren 06.10.2009

McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. London: Abacus. 1964.