Medium (bearer)

For other meanings of "medium," see Medium (disambiguation).

A medium (plural media) is a carrier of something. Common things carried by media include information, art, or physical objects. A medium may provide transmission or storage of information or both.

By metonymy, the industries which produce news and entertainment content for the mass media are often called "the media" (in much the same way the newspaper industry is called "the press"). In the late 20th century it became commonplace for this usage to be construed as singular ("The media is...") rather than as the traditional plural.

Types of media

A medium is characterized by what it carries, as follows:

Information media

Speech, gestures, telephone.
Stone scores, audio and video recordings, hard disks
Paper, letter mail
Mass media: recitations, newspaper, magazine, movies, broadcast media (television, radio, streaming media), Compact discs, DVDs, videocassettes
Interactive media: computer games, online games, video games, edutainment, interactive television
The Internet is a mix of mass media and personal media

Regional media

Art media

In art, the medium is the material in which an artist works (ie paint, wood, marble, steel, etc).

Physical object media

In biology and chemistry, a solvent serves as a medium for molecules.

A medium through which waves propagate may be classified as follows:

Linear medium, if different waves at any particular point in the medium can be added;
Bounded medium, if it is finite in extent, otherwise unbounded medium;
Uniform medium, if its physical properties are unchanged at different points;
Isotropic medium, if its physical properties are the same in different directions.

Quotations

Marshall McLuhan was famous for saying "The medium is the message."