cct300-lab3

Different types of media brings forth a degree of participation for the audience depending on the type of medium. McLuhan describes "hot" media as something that enhances only one sense. He uses movies, print, radio and photography as examples as hot media because they are full of information but has less sensory involvement. Movies as an example enhances vision because everything is shown to the audience in a such a way that people don't need to fill in the details. Everything is appeared in front of them and extends only one sense in "high definition".

In contrast, McLuhan describes "cool" media as a medium that lacks information but causes high sensory involvement. He uses television, cartoons and comics as examples because it requires individuals to apply more effort to conclude meaning and comprehension by putting pieces together. McLuhan believes that cartoons are "low definition" because very little visual information is actually provided. This means the audience has to participate and extract the meanings themselves.

Marshall McLuhan defines comics as an extension of photographic media because he believed that comics created a world of inclusive gesture and dramatic posture. It's more of an extension because comics use a mixture of different elements to create a visual piece. Usually it uses cartoons which means there's very little visual information and the audience must piece together the elements provided to fully understand. Comics are usually integrated with text as well as graphics, which means the audience can gather more information from the medium than just a regular photo.