Hot and coldMedia

By James wellman

Hot Vs. Cold Media

Hot media consists of Photography, Radio, Phonetic Alphabet, Cinema, Printed Books, and they are a hot media because they entertain one of our senses with “high definition.”

Cold media consists of cartoons, telephones,

hieroglyphics, television, comic

books, and they are a cold media because

they need to be understood with

several senses due to their “low definition.”

THE HOT MEDIA

Radio

Phonetic AlphabetPrinted Books

Photography

Cinema

Hot Media: Phonetic Alphabet

• The image to the left is an example of an early language that is no longer used entitled Cyrillic and it is done in the Phonetic form of alphabet. The American, English alphabet was created using this Phonetic style and this is what makes it a hot medium.

• The single sense that is used in the interpreting of these Phonetic style alphabets is visual.

Hot Media:Printed Books

• The printed word in books is linear in it’s telling of a story and in it’s printed words. This linear quality is what makes this a hot medium. The transformation of the written word, into the mass produced printed word, was the cause for many an earth-changing event; such as the religious wars of the middle-ages, mass production of the Holy Bible, and the origin of Nationalism.

• Sight is the sense we use to decipher books.

Hot Media:

Photography

• Photography is a hot media due to its high definition visuals, which the image above is an example of. This picture has captured a speeding bullet a little after mid-penetration thru a Christmas ornament filled with water.

• Hot mediums extend to one single sense and the sense in this case is sight.

Hot Media:Radio

• Radio is consistent and linear. There are rarely moments when listening to the radio are not filled with the hearing of words, thus creating the consistency and more importantly linear aspect of this hot medium.

• The one sense that is played to in this medium is hearing.

Hot Media:Cinema

• Cinema is a hot media because it is linear, usually depicted in very high definition thru both vision and hearing, and this makes for a lower participation level. It is linear in that it is a story told in completion; it has a beginning, a middle, and an end, and there are no interruptions in the story telling process.

THE COLD MEDIA

Phone

TelevisionComic Books

Cartoons

Hieroglyphics

Cold Media:Hieroglyphics

• Hieroglyphics are a cold medium because they are of low definition and much more difficult to decipher than a phonetic alphabet for instance. There is less data here, which makes it higher participation, and this qualifies it as a cold media.

• The senses involved in understanding hieroglyphics would be sight, and touch.

Cold Media:Telephone

• Telephones are a cold media due to the lack of information that should otherwise be provided during a telephone conversation, and a defining factor in this equation is that speech is a cold medium that can only provide limited amounts of information.

• Another characteristic of cold media is a higher participation rate, which can definitely be applied to the telephone, due to the unending work involved in trying to understand the person that you are conversing with.

• There is a human sense and another medium used in the operation of the phone. They are hearing and speech.

Cold Media:Television

• The medium of television is non-linear, unlike cinema which tells it’s story from beginning to end with no interruptions, and because of these breaks it causes gaps in the information flow. This makes the viewer become more involved, having to work harder to understand what they are viewing. All of these are indicators of a cold media.

• While watching television you need to apply the senses of sight and hearing.

Cold Media:Cartoons

• Cartoons are first on the list as we enter into the realm of the cold mediums, and the first distinguishing factor for cartoons is that the images are very low definition. Cartoons are visually lacking in information, which creates a lower quality visual media that makes for a higher participation rate.

• Cold media, such as this, plays to multiple senses, and the senses used for interpreting cartoons would be vision and hearing.

Cold Media:Comic Books

• There is a great deal of imagination involved in the reading of a comic book and that is due to the lack of information in between each panel. This makes it more interactive, and initiates the right-side of the brain to participate with more imagination. Definitely a cold medium, but also one of the greatest mediums as well. That is just personal opinion of course.

• The multiple senses involved with this media would be sight and touch.

What does the future hold?

• Although the cold media may seem to be less efficient in some ways, such as being higher in participation due to the need of many senses to understand or utilize it, there is still a much larger demand for the use of it. Cell phones, high definition television, and even digital comic books are where the future is headed, and every year these particular media are being improved upon. As they are refined this makes them move back towards becoming a hot media. So, we can see what media will dominate the future, just not whether it will be a cold or hot one.

The End