Mediums and Technologies: the way media is constructed and how our experience of these texts are impacted by their medium.  Media is a way to represent certain ideas and ‘things’ and then furthering this representation to an impacting thought.  Being able to engage an audience into the message you are trying to portray through your media representation.  Media is quite a powerful thing that has developed over time and is prevalent now more than ever.

“The medium is the message” – Marshall Mccluhan

TV = cool media.  It is always there.  It is always in the background demanding attention.  More often than not when I’m watching TV, I will be sitting on my phone scrolling through Facebook or Instagram at the same time.  So I’m not really actively watching the television, I’m just relishing in the comfort of having the technology playing in the background.  There is a definite awareness of media technologies today with the idea that every audience member is potentially a media creator.  We are all physically able to create media due to it’s modern day accessibility, so it is clear that we are consumed in the medium.

“The effect of the program is incidental” – Marshall Mccluhan

I’m not sure I 100% agree with this statement due to the fact that as a typical human, I require sustenance.  I want to watch entertaining media and learn things and be intrigued.  Instead, Mccluhan is describing the content as irrelevant.  There are obvious ideas in my life to support Mccluhan, including the idea that I am always involved in media regardless of my actual active involvement.  Scrolling through Facebook as I “watch” Foxtel, but not really watch it.  But I do believe that the content is important – just maybe not all the time.  I know that it is incidental that I will turn on the TV, but if something interesting is playing, it will steal my whole attention.