WEEK 10

Media: The Extensions of Man

Marshall McLuhan had theories about media as the extensions of man. Kindly explain how does the theories being applied in this age and time using mass media.

A car, or vehicle, is an extension of the legs (walking). A book is an extension of the eyes (seeing). Marshall McLuhan's ideas and theories are still relevant to this modern day. Mass media is a collection of media and technologies such as the internet, television, radio, magazines and newspapers that are displayed to a large group of audience. Linking one of McLuhan's theory, the mass media is an extension of man. To be more specific, mass media is the extension of all parts of the human body. In his book, Understanding Media, he writes "..all technologies are extensions of our physical and nervous systems to increase power and speed." The phone extends our voice, television extends our eyes and ears, the computer extends our brain, and electronic media extends our central nervous system. Other than that, the Hot and Cold theory which is applied to media where a Hot medium extends one single sense in high definition while the Cold/Cool medium is low definition. Hot medium does not require much participation while Cool medium needs more participation. Examples of Hot media are the radio, books, photograph, and films. Cold media examples are telephone and television. These forms of media are widely used in today's society.

References
- http://www.themediumisthemassage.com/the-book-is-an-extension-of-the-eye/
- http://www.criticalmaking.com/ddimit/?p=495
- https://www.hastac.org/blogs/amcrochet/2017/05/10/analyzing-theories-marshall-mcluhan
- http://enculturation.net/teaching-mcluhan
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNcy24WD4yk