Definition and Examples of Media in Communications

In the communication process, a medium is a channel or system of communication—the means by which  information (the message) is transmitted  between a speaker or writer (the sender) and an audience (the receiver). The plural form is  media, and the term is also known as a channel. The medium used to send a message may range from an individuals voice, writing, clothing, and body language to forms of mass communication such as newspapers, television, and the internet. Communication Media Changes Over Time Before the printing press, mass communication didnt exist, as books were handwritten and literacy wasnt widespread throughout all social classes. The invention of moveable type was a major communication innovation for the world. Author Paula S. Tompkins sums up the history of communication and change thusly: When a communication medium changes, our practices  and  experiences of communication also change. The technology of writing liberated human communication from the medium of face-to-face (f2f) interaction. This  change affected both the process and  experience of communication, as persons no longer needed to be physically present to communicate with one another. The technology of the printing press further promoted the medium of writing by  mechanizing the creation and distribution of the written word. This began the new communication form of mass communication in pamphlets, newspapers, and cheap books, in contrast to the medium of handwritten documents and books.  Most recently, the medium of digital technology  is again changing the process and experience of human communication. – Practicing Communication Ethics: Development, Discernment, and Decision-Making. Routledge, 2016 Information Inundation Television mass media used to distill the news into a nightly news hour. With the advent of 24-hour news channels on cable, people could check in hourly or at any point in the hour to find out the latest news. Now, with social media platforms and the ubiquitous smartphones in our pockets, people can check news and happenings—or be alerted of them—constantly throughout the day. This puts a lot more news up front just because its the most recent. News outlets and channels looking for peoples eyeballs on their content (and their advertisers) have a lot of pressure to keep those updates coming to peoples feeds. The outrageous, shocking, and easily digestible gets shared more widely than something thats complex and nuanced. Something short gets read more widely than something long. Authors James W. Chesebro and Dale A. Bertelsen noted how modern messaging seems a lot more like marketing than discourse, and their observation has only been amplified with the advent of social media: [A] significant shift in the nature of communication has been reported for several decades. Increasingly, it has been noted that a shift from a content orientation—with its emphasis on the ideational or substantive dimension of  discourse—to a concern for form or  medium—with an emphasis on image, strategy, and patterns of discourse—has been identified as a central feature of the information age. – Analyzing Media: Communication Technologies as Symbolic and Cognitive Systems. Guilford Press, 1996 Medium vs. Message If the medium through which information is delivered affects what people get out of it, that could have big implications for today. As people move away from the in-depth coverage of an issue they can receive in print media to getting more information from social media, they consume increasing amounts of their information in soundbites, shared snippets of news that may be slanted, inaccurate, or completely fake. In the modern age of people will remember it if you repeat it often enough—it doesnt matter if its true, it takes deeper dives into the information by message receivers to find the real story and any hidden motives behind the headlines. If the medium doesnt equate with the message, its still true that different formats carry different versions of the same story, such as the depth of information or its emphasis.