Simply put, value-added (added-value) is the value that has been added to each unit of product and has made it more valuable for the consumer. For instance, once the wheat is transformed into flour, it takes a more added value and so is assumed more valuable.

The same goes for bread which is known as a valuable form of flour. In simple words, added-value stands for all the values, qualities, benefits, usage, process, and functions that have been added to the final product and made it much more valuable than the prior form. As an example, bread owns more added value than flour, for what has been cooked, and shaped, and is a processed version of its last form, known as flour. The theory can be applied to other subjects, products, and services and the result will be the same: Added value brings a new form, name, and function as well. The more added value, the higher the value of the product and its demand. SCM (Supply Chain Management) is a more academic, framed, and also scientific term used for the same story. The same goes with #supply_chain_management as each aspect of the process ensures more added value to the current phase of production.

Once the product is armed with added value, it will get a new “form” and “name” different from the last one.

This note seeks to apply the same story to the #media products and suggest a brand new approach and definition of Hot and Cold Media based on the added value. As you have learned from the past note about Hot and Cold media, there are certain properties for different media that help us to distinguish between hot and cold ones. Definition, Dimension, and Reading are the most critical ones that we employ to tackle the issue of added value and SCM in the media industry and hot and cold ones. As mentioned before, the media with the lowest definition and dimension (Low Definition), is labeled as Cold media while the HD (High Definition) one is known as Hot media.

Now the question is, how do we can evolve a low-definition medium (content) into a high-definition one? This is exactly what this note has been written for. The point is that the gap between Low definition and High definition is filled and covered with Media Added-Value.

Overheating Media: Hot and Cold Media from Supply Chain Perspective

Unlike the way that Marshall McLuhan and other media studies suggest, in this note, hot and cold simply refer to their explicit and not implicit meaning. By using Hot for hot media, you are referring to a cooked (more processed and more added-value) version of #media_product while the term Cold refers to the raw and fresh material for its hot version. In this scenario, overheating is simply implying a set of actions (take it as a kind of #scm process in media dialectic) for transferring a cold media to its hot version. In another tone, #overheating is a process of transferring a cold media to a hot one by adding more values which leads to more definition and dimension, less reading, and a different form.

Overheating can be known as a Refinery process of the raw content. 

Just like the way that the wheat is transformed and evolved into bread, each step of the overheating process increases the #definition and #dimension of the media product, while decreasing its reading and its potential for transforming to other types and forms. The flour can be used for making both cake and bread. But once it is used for bread, it is not feasible to use it for cake. The same goes for media products. Sheet music can be used for different instruments, but the playing and records of a certain instrument can’t be used or known as another instrument. Each instrument has its own form and fingerprint.

Overheating vs Definition and Reading

Overheating is a process in which the cold medium (Cold content) is transformed into the hot content by increasing its definition (Size, color, names, frame, character, sounds, shape, and other media qualities) while limiting its readings (interpretation and study).

Simply put, Hot content is more unique than Cold content.

Examples

The textbook is a cold medium that can be overheated and transformed into an audiobook. Audiobook enjoys more dimensions (text + voice), higher definition (voice), and limited reading (certain voice limits the imagination of the text with other voices and each voice has its own fingerprint that makes it more unique). From the added-value perspective, an audiobook is more valuable and more expensive for it has taken an extra role and labor for somebody to read what has been written before. In another way, the textbook only owns one single role of the writer, while the audiobook is a group work of the writer and narrators. So the audiobook is a hot version of a textbook. Now we go further and transform the audiobook into a movie that has certain characters, space, settings, location, decoration, light, and sound. The process is simply overheating the audiobook by adding more value and more players to the previous game as well. Just as you can comprehend it, step by step we are increasing the definition while decreasing the readings. In the first version of a textbook, the reader can imagine the whole world in a completely personal and customized way. So each reader has his own reading. But the hot version of the movie not only imposes its own definition and reading but also imposes the exact same reading to an infinite number of audiences.

Cold medium (content) is formless, and hot content is rigid, formed, constructed, and defined.

Wrapping up

To recap the whole story, the list below defines the different properties of the hot and cold media from the added-value (Supply Chain) perspective.

• Cold media is the raw material of its hot version.
• Hot media conserves more added value (but not essentially more benefits)
• Overheating is the process used for transforming a cold medium (content) into a hot one.
• Overheating increases the definition (dimension) and limits the reading.
• Unlike the other industries, in Media, more added value doesn’t essentially refer to more benefits and production for the consumer.
• Hot content is a unique and cooked version of cold one.
• Overheating is a refinery process of cold medium and content.