Week 7: Post 2

As I read Marshall McLuhan's media logic and proclamation that “‘the medium is the message’”(Trenholm, 2008, p. 307), I began to consider the parallel between his theorizing and the radical feminist Carol Hanisch’s (1969) essay “The Personal is Political.” Briefly stated, Hanisch attributed the personal struggles of a woman’s experience to systematic oppression; women were not to be conceptualized as “bad” or “evil” because of their “emotions” or “PMS,” but because of male power and privilege, sexism, and ubiquitous gender inequities. Simply, Hanisch’s essay functioned as a “call to action” for both politicians and women. She wanted women, who now had a “voice” in determining the political process to become active and committed to shifting the gender inequalities in policies. In addition, she solicited the attention of politicians, primarily white, heterosexual males, to consider the status of women, i.e., how the epidemic of sexual harassment in the workplace was impacting both a women’s professional productivity and her personal longevity. Both Hanisch and McLuhan’s theories “[affect] how we experience the world” (Trenholm, 2008, p. 307) through the conscious and unconscious consumption of messages. McLuhan’s philosophy incorporates mediums as an extension of ourselves; and therefore our exposure to both personal and social (political) messages are malleable because of our abilities to create change.

To evaluate McLuhan’s “idea that television is a cool medium,” I would have to comment on his invitation to us, as viewers, to suspend our disbelief, placing the onus on us to “fill in the detail” (Trenholm, 2008, p. 307). In considering his concepts of “cool” and “hotter” for the mediums of television and radio, respectively, I think about (similar to the 1960 presidential debates example) who, presently, is ruling those mediums and what messages are they sending on them to capture viewers. While this isn’t a statement with numerical accuracy, in my experiences I hear more daily talk radio discussing religion than I do on television; I often see those on Sundays. And, I believe McLuhan’s cool-hot distinction has validity when you consider those numbers and the success of Oprah on television verses radio. Her “coolness” for the medium of television has made her the mogul of daytime whereas “hotter” personalities like Ryan Seacrest and Glen Beck are magnates of the radio programs.