Define Media

Media have been around our daily lives since papermaking, the first medium, developed in China and spread through Asia and Arab by the year 600. As time progresses and technology advances, media are able to deliver messages or information to a wider range of people faster, and sending information more accurately. Nowadays, many people are starting to perceive media as the content they carry, but not the media themselves. For example, the issue of growing media violence concerns many parents in the society. They blame that the media are influencing the younger generation with too much violent programs and cartoons, causing them to behave more aggressively. In this example, parents are assuming the media are the violent contents that are delivered to their children. However, media are actually the middle-men, or the “middle-things” that connect their children with the violent content that producer produced. Therefore, media are channels or ways that can enhance human’s senses to the extent that a person can connect with the contents in the media and shape the ways individual perceive the world. This definition can be best supported by the article, Understanding Media: The Extension of Man by Marshall McLuhan.

In Understanding Media: The Extension of Man, McLuhan suggested that media is not the content that they carry, but the characteristic of the media themselves. He uses the light bulb as a demonstration of this idea. Although a light bulb doesn’t have the content like a TV has TV shows or a magazine has articles, it is a medium that enables people to view spaces and objects during the night. Otherwise, everything would be covered by darkness. He states that “a light bulb creates an environment by its mere presence.” (9) Even though the light bulb does not contain any content, it has enhanced the sense of vision to connect with the environment around us, and shape the way people perceive the world in darkness.

McLuhan also states that people failed in studying media because they pay too much attention on the content of what the media is delivering, which veils the character and social effects of the media. Take the example of the light bulb. Light bulb was never considered as a medium because it does not deliver any content. But McLuhan perceives that any medium accelerates existing processes introduces a change of pattern into human behavior, will result in a social consequence. Therefore, it is the medium that will shape the ways individual perceive the world, but not the content of the media.

Before reading McLuhan’s Understanding Media: The Extension of Man, I always perceived media as the content the media is delivering. However, after coming up with my own definition of media, I finally understand what media are. Media are like coals. When you look at the coal itself, you will never imagine that it is the main resources of our modern world. However, when energy companies burn and transform them into energy, coals become something that we cannot live without. If coal is the medium, then the potential energy inside the coal is the content of the media. The coal enhanced the living life style of human to the extent that people can connect with the potential energy stored inside the coal, and shape the way individual perceive the world.