One of the things I found most remarkable about this reading was the high esteem with which McLuhan views television. In modern critical study of film and television, film is considered the far more involved medium than television—requiring an active participation on the part of the thoughtful viewer—who considers plot, structure, character behavior, lighting, artistic design, editorial work, camera work, auditory decisions and exploration of themes. While the content is important, the medium is equally important, and does serve (hot medium?) all of the information necessary to the viewer, but leaves a great deal for the viewer to resolve on their own in terms of connecting the information presented to other films and mediums that they are familiar with and being certain that they are accessing all of the data being delivered. Many casual viewers of film are not conscious of all of the data they are receiving (particularly auditory data) and how it affects their interaction with the media.

That being said, free television has quickly become the unwanted stepchild of modern art forms (and in some ways technology). Many shows appeal to the lowest common denominator, require a minimum of involvement or audience participation and demonstrate an acute lack of thoughtfulness and information perceived. The idea that this form involves more participation than film is… bewildering to me. Perhaps it was a response to the relative newness of the form when he wrote this.

Overall though, some comments to touch to another point of McLuhan’s, albeit from a slightly tangential perspective. McLuhan says “The young people who have experienced a decade of TV have naturally imbibed an urge toward involvement in depth that makes all the remote visualized goals of usual culture seem not only unreal but irrelevant, and not only irrelevant but anemic. lt is the total involvement in all-inclusive nowness that occurs in young lives via TV's mosaic image. This change of attitude has nothing to do with programming in any way, and would be the same if the programs consisted entirely of the highest cultural content. The change in attitude by means of relating themselves to the mosaic TV image would occur in any event. It is, of course, our job not only to understand this change but to exploit it for its pedagogical richness. The TV child expects involvement and doesn't want a specialist job in the future. He does want a role and a deep commitment to his society.”(p. 443).

The problem with this demonstrated in modern society comes in the popularity of hero tales, particularly in television and film. As a personal note, I’m a huge fan of hero tales, and my girlfriend despises them (for the reasons I’m about to outline). I studied film and literature in college; she studied social movements. People watch films and television about epic protagonists who engage in sweeping dramatic actions and get caught up in the power of the story. They feel, through their identification, that they are participating in the story, and that they are actually effecting societal change by participating in a viewing activity. However, they are not actually changing anything. A sense of personal epic narrative has actually stunted people’s capacity to engage in real change that involves group movements and slow progress. Are people really participating in television? Does it give viewers something to do? Do they fill in information or do they just substitute their own experience of the real world with the experience of characters and thus become more inoculated to a passive relationship with the real world because they cannot have the sweeping narrative of fiction?