According to McLuhan, Amazon, Netflix, and iTunes, fit to be classified as media since they are at the top of the world’s streaming sites. The sites largely call for audience participation in streaming or downloading videos and audios. McLuhan further classifies different media as hot or cold depending on the extent to which they involve the user. He defines hot media as that which requires total participation of the audience such as reading a newspaper (MacFarlane 113). On the other hand, cool media do not need to capture all the senses of the audience. For instance, one can listen to radio, or talk on the phone, and at the same time do something else like texting. As such, Amazon and Netflix can be classified as hot since the audience needs to totally concentrate while streaming videos in these media. For instance, when the audience is streaming a movie, they would have to pause it in case they need to reply a text. Otherwise, they would miss a lot of detail. On the other hand, iTunes can be described as a cool medium due to its availability on apple devices where one can stream music and download podcasts. The three kinds of media have not moved past the medium as the message since most of their content must be subjected to a search by the audience before streaming. Otherwise, the audience would be watching any content therein by virtue of the streaming site’s reputation.
Of the three media, iTunes has the greatest impact on culture and society. According to McLuhan, the cool type of media, such as iTunes, is holistic, participatory, and immersive thereby impacting the society that is dominated by orality, which, on the other hand, forms the basis of a society’s culture (McLuhan 209). As such, Apple, the providers of iTunes, will transform the society by the introduction of the post-literate cultures in their coveted devices that hold the dominating electrically-based media, iTunes.
Works Cited
MacFarlane, Thomas. The Beatles and McLuhan: Understanding the Electric Age. Lanham, Md: The Scarecrow Press, 2013. Print.
McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. McGraw-Hill, 1964. Print.
