nickm.com > BAthesis || interactive fiction & e-lit

Footnote 6: McLuhan argues that literacy is a prerequisite for viewing of films or photos, that film is "completely involved with book culture," and that film, like print, is a "hot" medium of "high definition" that pushes information at viewers. (Gutenberg Galaxy 48-51, Understanding Media 249-250, 36) But McLuhan does not believe film and print engage the senses identically. "In terms of other media such as the printed page, film has the power to store and to convey a great deal of information. In an instant it presents a scene of landscape with figures that would requires several pages of prose to describe." (Understanding Media 252)