I agree with Marshell McLuhand that the medium is the message. As part of an audience, we have become either interested or disinterested on a subject/topic depending on what we first see or hear. For example, in watching television, we like to see changing pictures and things that are direct in order to understand what is trying to be conveyed to us. McLuhand states television has a mosaic logic which stimulates thoughts from the audience by providing information that resembles puzzles that have to be put together. He states television “encourages sensory involvement”. I like to watch CSI and Law and Order and I find myself more immersed in the show if I'm watching it directly. If I were to hear this show on the radio, I do not think I would be as involved to solve the crime. Another example that McLuhand provides is the linear logic where messages are transmitted through print media and people understand the topic in an orderly sequence. Watching or hearing a baseball game going on over reading the newspaper provides different information for the audience even though the topics are usually the same.
I think McLuhan's statement about a television being a “cool medium” is interesting. I agree that TV does demand its viewers “fill in detail”. As a TV viewer, I like to be actively watching a show. I prefer to think how a story is going to end rather than a spokesperson or narrator telling me what is going to happen. Because TV provides rapidly changing images, the audience is constantly changing their ideas; it is not static.
I too agree with his statement that the medium is the message. You make a really good point about how by watching something on TV we can become more interested and immersed in it than if it were to be through a different medium like the radio. Personally I am not captivated nearly as much with certain things over the radio, like the crime stories for instance. On a road trip a couple years ago we tried a crime/mystery book by type just to see, and it was not nearly as interesting or encouraging to follow. I think it is because like you said we want sensory involvement including visuals.
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