Media, Process of Mediation

Sense 1

• Media as means of dialogue between aspects of Reality. Means of engagement, devices to engage Reality.

Sense 2

• Consider the equivalence between two dyads: (Form & Function) and (Media & Mediation).

Oxford English Dictionary

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• media

  • 1. The main means of mass communication, esp. newspapers, radio, and television, regarded collectively; the reporters, journalists, etc., working for organizations engaged in such communication. Also, as a count noun: a particular means of mass communication.

  • 2. Computing. A physical object (as a disk, tape cartridge, etc.) used for the storage of data.

• medium

  • 4a. An intermediate agency, instrument, or channel; a means; esp. a means or channel of communication or expression.

  • Quoting 1605 — "But yet is not of necessitie, that Cogitations bee expressed by the Medium of Wordes."

  • 4c. Any of the varieties of painting or drawing as determined by the material or technique used. Hence more widely: any raw material or mode of expression used in an artistic or creative activity.

  • Quoting 1892 — "There is no man to-day who understands his medium [sc. water colour] more perfectly."

  • 4d. spec. A channel of mass communication, as newspapers, radio, television, etc.; the reporters, journalists, etc., working for organizations engaged in such communication. Frequently in plural with the. Cf. media n.2

  • 4e. Any physical material (as tape, disk, paper, etc.) used for recording or reproducing data, images, or sound.

  • 5a. An intervening substance through which a force acts on objects at a distance or through which impressions are conveyed to the senses; any substance considered with regard to its properties as a vehicle of light or sound. Frequently figurative.

  • Quoting 1643 — "The air, which is the medium of musick and of all sounds."

  • Quoting 1977 — "What a strange medium time is: transparent when you look back,..utterly opaque when you try to look forward."

  • 5b. A pervading or enveloping substance; the substance in which an organism lives; esp. one in which microorganisms, cells, etc., are cultured. In extended use: one's environment, conditions of life, or usual social setting.

  • Quoting 1865 — "You cannot thus abstract any man from the social medium by which he is surrounded."