Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
“Each medium, independent of the content it mediates, has its
own intrinsic effects which are its unique message. The railway
did not introduce movement or transportation or wheel or road
into human society, but it accelerated and enlarged the scale
of previous human functions, creating totally new kinds of cities
and new kinds of work and leisure. This happened whether
the railway functioned in a tropical or northern environment,
and is quite independent of the freight or content of the railway
medium. What McLuhan writes about the railroad applies with
equal validity to the media of print, television, computers and
now the Internet. 'The medium is the message' because it is
the 'medium that shapes and controls the scale and form of
human association and action.'”
Why do such changes concern a software designer? Because systems
that we design today must work in the socioeconomic ecology in which
it is implemented, which in turn gets affected by the changes about which
we are talking. Our systems are expected to be functional for many years
to come. If there are fundamental changes taking place due to the emer-
gence of new media, as happened in the case of the Internet, designers
can go wrong recommending a solution that will fit poorly in the new
world. This happened with many software applications that had to be
redone to work in a more interconnected, information-rich Web environ-
ment as that environment took hold in business and society. Is it always
necessary for designers to think that deeply? Perhaps not always; but when
large investments are at stake, it behooves one to pay attention to what
McLuhan says.
Hot and Cold
, McLuhan generally divides media into hot (high
definition of information) and cool (low definition of information). The
two terms have specific meanings. A hot medium is one that extends one
single sense in high definition. High definition means the state of being
well-filled with data. A cool medium is one with low definition. Because
of the lack of information, much must be filled in by users. Therefore, a
cool medium generally requires a higher level of participation of users
than a hot medium. When looking at the two different kinds of media,
it can be interpreted that the hotter the medium, the less someone needs
to interpret what is being presented to them; whereas the colder the
medium, the more someone has to uncover and engage in the media.
For example, in comparing a high-definition photograph with a sketch,
the photograph is “hot” because the viewer can glean a lot of information
In
Understanding Media
