g” television as natural.Marshal McLuhan also noted this active participation and in turn, labeled the television as a cool medium. A Cool medium is a low-definition display that draws a person in, requiring high participation to fill in the blanks. Although we do not realize all of the many processes required to view a television program, the watcher is in fact highly involved because of the low resolution monitor, mosaic screen, and thusly, greater mental participation. The mosaic of colored dots perfectly placed on the screen encourages iconic commentary from viewers, who are constantly being challenged to pull the picture together in their mind's eye.Because the viewer must actively spend time trying to interpret the image and the message it brings, viewers are inserted in to the story in an aural, intuitive, and emotionally involving manner. Marshall McLuhan noted that the ability of television to immerse people in events, bringing all kinds of places and times together in high-speed simultaneity meant the dawning of a new electronic age. In this era, television medium is fluent and at the mercy of time, but also displaying the world in fragments the form of the medium congeals that. This fosters the belief that all things are connected but causes confusion because the connections are never articulated. There is a realization that we cannot capture television, which is like an endless flow, a continuous stream; we just tune in and become part of an impersonal, silent and invisible audience. When reading a book, the pace is ours; we can read a sentence over and over again, it will always be there, it is transitory and does not have a beginning or a conclusion, even though the programs shown on television do. Perhaps it is this strong attachment to the senses that caused so many people to be completely drawn into the world trade center fiasco. Many described the event as “surreal” and had trouble comprehen...
