This is Mr. McLuhan's last and most wonderful article on media serial sharing.

Series 1: Media is information.

Serial 2: Media is an extension of human beings.

Serial 3: "Hot Media" and "Cold Media"

In the process of studying media, McLuhan used Harold kiness's method for reference and looked at the problem from two aspects. The medium is divided into two parts according to the cold and hot characteristics, that is, the medium is divided into hot medium and cold medium.

When collecting McLuhan's theory about media, I found an important problem. In fact, McLuhan has never clearly pointed out the distinction standard between cold and hot media. At present, the popular criteria for distinguishing hot and cold media in society are completely inferred from McLuhan's thoughts.

So what is a cold medium? Cold medium means that the information it transmits is small and vague, which needs to mobilize the cooperation of various senses and rely on rich imagination in understanding. Such as manuscripts, cartoons, telephone, television, silent movies, spoken language, etc. , all belong to cold media. The so-called cold medium is a medium that provides relatively little information and requires information recipients to spend more enthusiasm to understand. Traditional publications such as newspapers are cold media. In the face of cold words, we need to use our imagination to form stories.

Hot media is relative to' cold media', which means that the information transmitted is clear and clear, and the receiver can understand it without using more sensory and associative activities. Because it is' hot' in itself, people don't have to' warm up' when processing information. Some people generalize that TV and comics are cold media; Books, newspapers, radios, talking movies, photos, etc. It is a popular media, because they all act by feeling and don't need more association.

So what standard is used to distinguish between cold and hot media?

The most important thing is not to distinguish between cold and hot media. The reason is that cold and hot media enlighten us that different media have different ways of acting on people, and the psychological and behavioral reactions caused by them also have their own characteristics, so we should take these factors into account when studying media. So it doesn't matter what criteria are used to distinguish between cold and heat. Another reason why the criteria for distinguishing cold and hot media become unimportant is that cold and hot media can be transformed into each other.

For example, how does the air conditioner adjust the temperature and air temperature? The air conditioning system is realized by refrigerant medium. This is why McLuhan mentioned that hot and cold media can be transformed into each other, because the media itself. Mcluhan called the transformation of this hot and cold medium reversibility.

In real life, the reversibility of air conditioning is driven by electric energy, and in communication, the conversion between hot and cold media is often realized by' hybridization' between media.

Another example is movies. We can see that the development history of this medium is a' mixed history'. The initial screening of a movie is silent, only the picture. In other words, the original meaning of the word movie should refer to silent movies. By the way, in China, there are earlier media similar to silent films, that is, foreign films and shadow plays. Silent film, a new medium, quickly crossed with broadcasting to produce a new medium-talking film.

Audio film is a popular media that swept the world in the second half of the 20th century. However, in the 20th century, under the impact of other sound media, audio movies began a new round of mixing process, that is, from 3D movies to 4D movies, that is, both sound and images were added with touch.

# Mr. McLuhan finished the media serial sharing #

The above is the whole content of this article.