By Diana Mwaizi

According to Marshall Luhan theory of hot and cold media, hot medium are low in participation while cool medium are high in participation and hot medium extends one single sense in high definition(requires less sensory involvement) unlike cool/cold medium which is low definition(More sensory involvement).

A hot medium excludes and cool medium includes.
McLuhan idea helps media to regulate the society in a “thermostatic manner” in a way that the medium can both incorporate the characteristics of both hot and cold media. The emergency of computer and technologies does not threaten the validity of the hot and cold medium theory; it merely aerates the hot legacy of printed word by bringing forth the cooler currents of words and pictures in motion (Videos).
McLuhan indicates how forms of media either evolve over time from cool to hot or vice versa.

Categorization of YouTube as a cold or hot medium remains a paradox to me at it facilitates high level of participation ,requires participation from audience to get the correct information which makes it a cool medium like TV and seminar, on the other hand, it also sucks up our attention and dominates our senses, the delivery of content is straight forward, possesses abundant visual and sound data to the eyes/ears and leave no room for interpretation and further thought on the part of audience which makes it a hot medium like radio and lecture.
But what then of McLuhan’s concepts of hot and cold media? How can a medium that appears overwhelmingly ‘hot’ on the surface be cool in practice? According to Levinson, 2001, he says computer is ‘triumph of media’ that brings the “cooling of media”, can we comfortable say YouTube is a cool medium??

By Diana Mwaizi