define media

Professor Li

Define Media

Media is all around us and used in our everyday lives. But what exactly is media? Media is how we communicate in the world today. It has taken a lot of the social interactions in our everyday life and replaced it with new technology. Media which is the plural form of medium can best be described as our source, or hub, of getting information in what is going on in the world today, as well as people’s thoughts and ideas on these subjects. Media can best be described as the mass communication between people from anywhere in the world. What used to take place in face-to-face meetings has now been replaced by emails, phone calls, video messaging and so many other ways. People now get their news from the internet, TV, newspapers. We take for granted how much of an influence media has on our lives daily. What if we didn’t have these things available to us, but that is a whole different topic.

Media has been transformed to a different kind of power then what it used to be. The effects that media such as TV, the internet and written media have are insurmountable in influencing the people around the world today. I believe media is the way people get their messages and thoughts across through items such as the TV or the internet. Take for an example a television commercial, a form of media. But what is actually being said to get the message across is what I think media is. Being able to get your thoughts and ideas across in creative and different ways to make people remember. Media is also the device used to get these messages across. My favorite medium in my life would have to be my cell phone. Something I use daily to talk to people, stay connected with my favorite websites, receive emails, and many other things. Media is a form of technology that is used for the convenience of people to socialize with others as well as generate a lot of interest because it is such an integral part of our lives. Croteau & Hoynes talk about how media is a socializing agent, they go on to say that “Media also affect how we learn about our world and interact with one another. That is, mass media are bound up with the process of social relations.” The affects of media on the way people interact and socialize is so great people don’t realize how much we as a society rely on media to keep us informed and together with everyone else. The media deprivation experiment that we tried the first weekend of class just went to show me how hard it would be to live my life with just one form of media taken out of my life. I only lasted about 3 hours.

Media is the new form of socializing in today’s world. It has also had its effect on everything that goes on in the world from politics to sports or business to amusement. How have different entities grown and prospered or gone down in flames because of media? It is a question that would take a lifetime to explain its effects. Media has turned heroes into villains in an instant like Tiger Woods. It has the effect to tear a life apart, or build one from nothing with a simple article on a website, or a post on a social media network like Twitter. Media is the act of getting a message across with the means of technology we now have available to us. It has changed the way people live and act in today’s society. “Americans have about & hours of “leisure” time per day, and about two-thirds of that time – more than 4 ½ hours – is spent with mass media” (Croteau & Hoynes). It just goes to show how much media can consume people without you realizing it. What is media? It is the messages and the ideas and the way we do it to connect to people in our lives as well as outside of them.