McLuhan

I figured out how to connect my laptop to the tv for stereo music listening pleasure. It's exactly the same as how I've been watching movies from the laptop to the computer, only I listen to music, so I didn't figure it out so much as realize it all of a sudden.

I've been reading McLuhan, Understanding Media, and I have a problem with hot and cool media. How can tv be a cool medium? A cool medium is defined by McLuhan as "low definition", and "high in participation or completion by the audience". Hot media is "high definition", "well filled with data" and passively received. McLuhan says film is a hot medium and tv is a cool medium. Now, I can see that film in a movie theatre is a more immersive experience, and that film has a longer narrative than tv, but I just don't see tv as requiring so much more participation than film. Perhaps it has something to do with the advertising segments breaking up the program. If anyone has an idea on this, please post a comment. Other than this, I wonder how much the terminology of hot and cool media contribute to a real understanding of media. McLuhan seems to be weaving a very compelling theory, but is there such a thing as a "cool society" and a "hot society"? He says that tribal societies are cool societies. This is so vague and unelaborated that it's meaningless. I could be misunderstanding. He does elaborate on cool, tribal societies, but not in the direction of establishing them as such.

I am having trouble engaging with these ideas. Not that the ideas are unengaging. It's just that in engaging with them, so many problems crop up. I'm not sure that I understand properly. Is this going to be a problem for me in getting into grad school?