How might Marshall McLuhan's theory of hot and cold media be used to explain the surge of interest in mobile technology, especially text and picture messaging?

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How might Marshall McLuhan’s theory of hot and cold media be used to explain the surge of interest in mobile technology, especially text and picture messaging?

‘Any invention or technology is an extension or self-amputation of our physical bodies, and such extension also demands new ratios or new equilibriums among the other organs and extensions of the body’, Marshall McLuhan in ‘Understanding Media’ (1964, p43). A comment which has possibly never been truer than when understood with regard to a mobile phone. McLuhan’s theories have recently been given new life with the onset of the Internet; however, they can also be usefully applied to the massive explosion of mobile technology. Given it is a medium which some may consider to be cool; its impact on society has been immeasurable.

In today’s society it is difficult to meet a person between the ages of fifteen and fifty who do not own a mobile phone. Like televisions, it is the electronic accessory of the moment and it is advancing fast. Only five years ago text messaging was in its infancy and not all phones offered it; picture messaging was unheard of. Nowadays picture messaging is very much here and already the technology has moved towards video messaging. Some ‘mobile phones’ would be more accurately described as hand held computers as the telephony is only a fraction of its capabilities and often not even its main function. As with most mobile phones the main function consumer’s use is text messaging.

According to McLuhan in ‘Understanding Media’ (1964) the advent of a hot explosive medium can cause drastic changes to politics and society. This can be seen in the effects that such technology has had on not only the telephone but the way people communicate in day to day life. However, when contrasted with a hot medium such as television or cinema, text and picture messaging are comparatively cool. They provide far less information and demand more participation from the receiver to fill in the gaps. Pictures received in messages are only small and very symbolic rather than detailed. There is also only limited space for text and language is often limited to abbreviations and annotation. Of course when compared to the standard telephone, mobile technology is considerably hotter, however, in order to stay within McLuhan’s theory, and for the medium to cause such a change in society, one would assume that the medium itself would need to be hotter.

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Such a change could be better explained and explored by the theories of Roland Barthes, particularly his writings on myths and semiotics. In a collection of articles entitled ‘Mythologies’ (1973) Barthes explores practical objects and their cultural meanings. Examining such objects as cars and haircuts he scrutinizes the ‘signifiers’ and ‘signs’ that they contain. ‘Barthes begins by making explicit the meanings of apparently neutral objects and then moves on to consider the social and historical conditions they obscure’ (McNeill 1996). He examined cars, comparing them to Gothic cathedrals, due to their uses over and above their basic functions. Cars ...

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