Hot and Cold Media

Marshall McLuhan

We live in a society filled with media. Whether it be television, video games, print magazines, cell phones, or online websites, media is a prevalent part of our lives. However, much of the media we participate in differs in a variety of ways. As Marshall McLuhan states in his article Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, there are two different types of media that people participate in. These two forms of media, as McLuhan defines, are hot media and cold media.

Hot media, is a type of media that is low in user participation, but because of this, hot media is richly filled with information and details. For instance television shows are a form of hot media that people regularly engage in. Since television shows give audiences an abundance of details, providing story lines, characters, and tension, they are richly filled with information. However, since television shows give audience a great deal of information, they are low in participation and only ask viewers to watch the show to experience it. This in return gives viewers roughly the same experience.

The other form of media, is cold media. As McLuhan states, cold media is high in user participation, only giving users a baseline of information, which lets them have their own unique experience. An example of cold media is video games. Unlike television, video games engage users to participate; travelling across the screen with help from controllers and keyboards, listening for opponents through headsets, and playing with other teammates in multiplayer games.

One of the hot media items our class studied was the piece titled “Up Against the Screen M-Fers” by Justin Katko. In this piece, Katko uses a video that pushes the limits of electronic literature and calls for the destruction of screens, emphasizing their control on society, which is blatantly apparent due to the eerie tone expressed throughout the video. Furthermore, not only does the video create an eerie sense of unease towards modern digital technology but it also implies that the viewer is actually represented by a drone, which can be explained by the pixels and color scheme that are used to manipulate the mind into believing the user is actually hovering and looking into a CAVE (Cave Automatic Virtual Environment) of colorful light.

Additionally, the pace of the video emphasizes a feeling of chaos in an almost mind-consuming way.  For example, the blasts of piercing sound in the background creates a feeling of unease for the entirety of the video, which is created by an atmosphere that resembles human control and destruction. This apprehensive feeling, along with the authority figure represented by the soldier, may cause one to feel angry toward the screen and want to destroy it; ultimately fulfilling the goal of Katko’s literature creation.

Overall, “Up Against the Screen M-Fers”  is a work of hot media due to the abundance of information and lack of user control over the duration of the display. Through these aspects, the piece was able to create a dark mood and atmosphere that represents society being controlled and the anger of people wanting to demolish this control.

Our class also looked at a variety of cold media this week as well. For instance, “Pieces of Herself” by Juliet Davis is an exceptional form digital media that portrays exactly what cold media is. In this work, Davis describes society’s views of women and how people have portrayed women throughout time. In addition, Davis asks users to discover these views by actively participating in a series of black and white settings: such as the kitchen, shower, living room, and outside, which are commonly related to the thoughts of women. Along with the black and white settings, a few colored objects are placed around scene, as well as a blank body of a woman pictured on the left side of the screen. Dragging the colored images onto the blank body, users discover sounds, statements, and stories that relate to society’s views of women.

For instance, in the kitchen scene, a red flame can be seen in the oven. When users drag the flame to the woman’s body, they hear a story about how a woman’s favorite thing to bake is a pastry called nut-filled butterhorn, that takes all day to make and must perfect. The flame in particular relates a story that shows a woman’s domesticity in the kitchen. As society has shown and taught throughout time, a woman’s position is in the kitchen, where she is required to make food all day, that must turn out perfectly for her family. Furthermore, in the outside setting, a red apple is placed in one of the trees. As users drag the apple down from the tree and onto the woman’s body, they hear a passage from the Bible that states she will bring forth children out of sorrow and that she will desire her husband who rules superior to her.

Above all, through her work, Davis makes an important claim about the way women are viewed in society. These scenes depict the crude thoughts and views of women throughout society. But more importantly, they show how a woman’s identity is literally described on her body, just like the objects dragged onto the blank body represent, and that those images limit women to how they are viewed by society. In the end, “Pieces of Herself” is a work that calls audiences to open their eyes to the views that society have held of women, and to change those views into ones that celebrate and accept women for who they are and not the idea of who they are supposed to be.