Marshall McLuhans is a philosopher, know best for being one of the founding fathers for media theory. Within this massive achievement of this, lays his written work ‘Understand Media: The Extensions of Man’, where he explores many ideas, themes, and such.
Within the first chapter, which I think is the most opened and while connected with media today is the first chapter, which primarily focus on how the medium of a media serves as part of the message. In all honesty, I can say that this part of design is something that feels a little lost with today’s design. Nowadays, the message and the medium feel completely separated from one another, especially when including the involvement of AI, with creators living much of the work to be done by said AI. One example that comes to mind is the 2024 Coca Cola Christmas ad that were running this year. The ad itself contain all of the necessary holiday themes mixed with the usually cola imagery, but it felt very generic and disconnected to the themes of togetherness. People were in fact not consuming cola during the airing of this commercial, due to it being too “creepy” and closer to a “dystopian nightmare” then a holiday commercial.
Advertisement is something that is touched upon within ‘Understand Media: The Extensions of Man’. One chapter goes on to explain 'Hot and Cold Media' , how they are used, and it's effect on the audience. In the previous paragraph, I talked about the 2024 Cola Ad, and I will really quick explain it in terms of this of Hot and Cold. Since this form of advertisement is being televised and, as I said before, generalized in it's visuals, it would be considered Cold media, and though Coca cola is one of the most recognized company out there, this form of cold advertisement was not very successful. However, half the blame could be shift onto the media it was geared towards, that being television. While the specific time placement has been debated, It's generally agreed upon that television has been on decline since internet and streaming became widespread, which started around the late 2000's. Comparatively, streaming makes for a considerable more effective form of cold media then television. Cold media also has to makes the audience feel more engaged or participate more with the content, which video streaming services like Youtube, Twitter, Tumblr, and plenty more do very well with, especially now with there community borders and comment sections, allowing users to react to the media in real time. With television, they do not have that same real time reaction. To switch over towards Hot media, this usually includes radios, printed items (books, newspaper, etc.), and movies, and has the audience need to participate lower then with cold media. However, the most common occurrence of hot media to this day are platforms like Net flicks, Hulu, Disney+, and other tv/movie streaming platforms. The thing that separates these platforms from others like Youtube is that they're more personal and less demanding of the audience participation.
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