hot/cold media
from Kinneavy. "Discourse and the Field of English."
"Possibly most central (and controversial) to McLuhan's system of classification of media is his division of media into hot and cool, according to whether they involve little or much participation."
seems to relate to what Cat was talking about in terms of something being close to the body...maybe?
Comments
from the horse's mouth
"Any hot medium allows of less participating than a cool one, as a lecture makes for less participation than a seminar, and a book for less than a dialogue."
as for a cool medium
"It rejects hot figures and hot issues and people from the hot press media. Had TV occurred on a large scale during Hitler's reign he would have vanished quickly."
(from Understanding Media)