When I learned of McMahon’s passing this morning, I couldn’t help but to think of all the personalities we, as a culture, have come to know through television. McMahon, popularized by his work on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, is one of those personalities that have left an ever lasting impression in our minds via what Marshall McLuhan referred to as “cool” media – or Television.
How will such impressions be left on the minds of our children? Of our childrens’ children? Will it be TV? If so, it certainly won’t be TV in it’s traditional sense, or as your mother and father know it. As TV and the Internet merge closer and closer, we’ll have the ability to extract more information regarding topics of interest from one central location, on demand – with a mix of written text, photos and videos. I wonder what McCluhan would have thought of this.
Just as McCluhan’s continuum of “hot” to “cool” media help us define media on a participatory scale, McMahon and his relationship to the American viewer help define media on an emotional one.
