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06483_Field_TCUM T48.txt
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1996-04-10
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meagre amount of information. And speech is a cool medium of
low definition, because so little is given and so much has to be
filled in by the listener. On the other hand, hot media do not
leave so much to be filled in or completed by the audience. Hot
media are, therefore, low in participation, and cool media are
high in participation or completion by the audience. Naturally,
therefore, a hot medium like radio has very different effects on
the user from a cool medium like the telephone.
A cool medium like hieroglyphic or ideogrammic written
characters has very different effects from the hot and explosive
medium of the phonetic alphabet. The alphabet, when pushed
to a high degree of abstract visual intensity, became
typography. The printed word with its specialist intensity burst
the bonds of medieval corporate guilds and monasteries,
creating extreme individualist patterns of enterprise and