McLuhan argued that readers would now read in private, and so be alienated from others. Printing, a ditto device, confirmed and extended the new visual stress. Interestingly, McLuhan saw electronic media as a return to collective ways of perceiving the world. What McLuhan did not live to see, but perhaps foresaw, was the merging of text and electronic mass media in this new media called the Internet. McLuhan is also well known for his division of media into hot and cool categories.
Hot media are low in audience participation due to their high resolution or definition.
One can make an argument that the Web results by combining two cool media into a new synthesized, multimediated experience.