Media (communication)

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Media (communication)

In communication, media (singular Medium) are the storage

Data storage device

A data storage device is a device for recording information . Recording can be done using virtually any form of energy, spanning from manual muscle power in handwriting, to acoustic vibrations in phonographic recording, to electromagnetic energy modulating magnetic tape and optical discs....
and transmission

Data transmission

Data transmission is the physical transfer of data from point-to-point often represented as an electro-magnetic Signal over a point-to-point or point-to-multipoint communication channel....
tools used to store

Recording

Recording is a process of capturing data or translating information to a recording format stored on a storage medium often referred to as a record....
and deliver information

Information

Information as a Conveyed concept has a diversity of meanings, from everyday usage to technical settings. Generally speaking, the concept of information is closely related to notions of constraint, communication, control system, data, form, instruction, knowledge, Meaning , stimulation, pattern, perception, and knowledge representation....
or data

DATA

Debt, AIDS, Trade in Africa is a multinational Non-governmental organization founded in January 2002 in London by U2's Bono along with Robert Sargent Shriver III and activists from the Jubilee 2000 Drop the Debt campaign....
. It is often referred to as synonymous with mass media

Mass media

Mass media is a term used to denote a section of the media specifically envisioned and designed to reach a mainstream such as the population of a nation state....
or news media

News media

The news media refers to the section of the mass media that focuses on presenting current news to the public.These include print media ; broadcast media , and increasingly Internet-based mass media ....
, but may refer to a single medium used to communicate any data for any purpose.

Evolution
The beginning of human communication through artificial channels, i.e. not vocalization

Vocalization

Vocalization may refer to:*Speech communication*Vocal music*A type of animal communication involving their vocal cords*L-vocalization, a process by which an /l/ sound is replaced by a vowel or semivowel sound...
or gestures, goes back to ancient cave paintings, drawn maps, and writing

Writing

Writing is the representation of language in a textual Media through the use of a set of signs or symbols . It is distinguished from illustration, such as cave drawing and painting, and the recording of language via a non-textual medium such as Magnetic tape sound recording....
.

The Persian Empire

Persian Empire

The 'Persian Empire' was a series of successive Iranian or Persianization empires that ruled over the Iranian plateau, the original Persian homeland, and beyond in Southwest Asia, South Asia, Central Asia and the Caucasus....
(centred around present-day Iran

Iran

Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran and formerly known internationally as Persian Empire until 1935, is a country in Central Eurasia, located on the northeastern shore of the Persian Gulf and the southern shore of the Caspian Sea....
) played an important role in the field of communication.

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Evolution

The beginning of human communication through artificial channels, i.e. not vocalization

Vocalization

Writing

Persian Empire

Iran

Persian people

Persian identity, at least in terms of language, is traced to the ancient Indo-Iranians , who arrived in parts of Greater Iran circa 2000-1500 BCE....
emperor Cyrus the Great

Cyrus the Great

Cyrus the Great , , also known as Cyrus II of Persia and Cyrus the Elder, was a Persian people Shah . He was the founder of the Persian Empire under the Achaemenid dynasty, an empire, perhaps the most wealthy and magnificent in history....
(c. 550 BC) after his conquest of Media

Medes

The Medes were an Ancient Iranian peoples who lived in the northwestern portions of present-day Iran. This area was known in Greek as Media or Medea ....
. The role of the system as an intelligence gathering apparatus is well documented, and the service was (later) called angariae, a term that in time turned to indicate a tax system. The Old Testament

Old Testament

In Western Christianity, the Old Testament refers to the books that form the first of the two-part Christianity Bible Biblical canon. These works correspond to the Hebrew Bible , with some variations and additions....
(Esther

Esther

Esther , born Hadassah, is a queen of the Persian Empire in the Hebrew Bible, the queen of Ahasuerus , and heroine of the Biblical Book of Esther which is named after her....
, VIII) makes mention of this system: Ahasuerus, king of Medes

Medes

The Medes were an Ancient Iranian peoples who lived in the northwestern portions of present-day Iran. This area was known in Greek as Media or Medea ....
, used couriers for communicating his decisions. Herodotus

Herodotus

Herodotus of Halicarnassus was a Greeks historian who lived in the 5th century BC and is regarded as the "Father of History" in Western culture....
described the system in the following manner:

The word "communication" is derived from the Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Military history of the Roman Empire, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe....
root "communicare". This was due to the Roman Empire

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the Roman Republic phase of the Ancient Rome, characterised by an autocracy form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
also devising what might be described as a mail

Mail

Mail, or post, is a method for transmitting information and tangible objects, wherein written documents, typically enclosed in envelopes, and also small packages, are delivered to destinations around the world....
or postal system, in order to centralize control of the empire

Roman Empire

Rome

Rome is the capital city of Italy and Lazio, and is Italy's largest and most populous city, with 2,724,347 residents in an urban area of some ....
. This allowed for personal letter

Personal letter

A personal letter is a type of Letter which provides communication between a small number of people, usually two. There are many types of personal letters and they are written for a wide variety of reasons:...
s and for Rome to gather knowledge about events in its many widespread provinces. More advanced postal systems later appeared in the Islamic Caliphate

Caliphate

The caliphate represented the political leadership of the Muslim ummah in classical and medieval Islamic history and juristic theory. The head of state's position is based on the notion of a successor to the Prophets of Islam Muhammad's political authority....
and the Mongol Empire

Mongol Empire

The Mongol Empire was the List of largest empires#Contiguous Empires empire and the largest bar none. It emerged from the unification of Mongols and Turkic peoples tribes in modern day Mongolia, and grew through Mongol invasions, after Genghis Khan had been proclaimed ruler of all Mongols in 1206....
during the Middle Ages

Middle Ages

File:Karl 1 mit papst gelasius gregor1 sacramentar v karl d kahlen.jpgThe Middle Ages of European history are a period in history which lasted for roughly a millennium, commonly dated from the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century to the beginning of the Early Modern Period in the 16th century, marked by the division of Western Christi...
.

The adoption of a dominant communication medium is important enough that historians have folded civilization into "ages" according to the medium most widely used. A book titled "Five Epochs of Civilization" by William McGaughey (Thistlerose, 2000) divides history into the following stages: Ideographic writing produced the first civilization; alphabetic writing, the second; printing, the third; electronic recording and broadcasting, the fourth; and computer communication, the fifth. The media affects what people think about themselves and how they perceive people as well. What we think about self image and what others should look like comes from the media.

While it could be argued that these "Epochs" are just a historian's construction, digital and computer communication shows concrete evidence of changing the way humans organize. The latest trend

Trend

Trend may refer to:In Business:* Market trends, a prolonged period of time when prices in a financial market are rising or falling faster than their historical average, also known as "bull" and "bear" markets, respectively...
in communication, termed smartmobbing

Smart mob

A smart mob is a form of self-structuring social organization through technology-mediated, intelligent emergent behavior. The concept was introduced by Howard Rheingold in his book Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution....
, involves ad-hoc organization through mobile devices, allowing for effective many-to-many communication and social network

Social network

A social network is a social structure made of nodes that are tied by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as values, visions, ideas, financial exchange, friendship, sexual network, kinship, dislike, conflict or trade....
ing.

Electronic media

In the last century, a revolution in telecommunications has greatly altered communication by providing new media for long distance communication. The first transatlantic two-way radio broadcast occurred in 1906 and led to common communication via analogue and digital media:

Analog telecommunications include traditional telephony
Telephony

In telecommunication, telephony encompasses the general use of equipment to provide voice communication over distances, specifically by connecting telephones to each other....
, radio
Radio

Radio is the transmission of signals, by modulation of electromagnetic radiation with frequency below those of visible light.Electromagnetic radiation radio propagation by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space....
, and TV
Television

Television is a widely used telecommunication mass-media for transmitting and receiving moving , either monochrome or color, usually accompanied by sound....
broadcasts.
Digital
Digital

A digital system uses discrete values, usually but not always symbolized numerically to represent information for input, processing, transmission, storage, etc....
telecommunications allow for computer-mediated communication
Computer-mediated communication

Computer-Mediated Communication is defined as any communicative transaction which occurs through the use of two or more networked computers. While the term has traditionally referred to those communications that occur via computer-mediated formats it has also been applied to other forms of text-based interaction such as text messaging....
, telegraphy
Telegraphy

Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of written messages without physical transport of letters. Radiotelegraphy or wireless telegraphy transmits messages using radio....
, and computer network
Computer network

A computer network is a group of interconnected computers. Networks may be classified according to a wide variety of characteristics. This article provides a general overview of some types and categories and also presents the basic components of a network....
s.

Communications media impact more than the reach of messages. They impact content and customs; for example, Thomas Edison

Thomas Edison

Thomas Alva Edison was an American inventor and businessman who developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph and the long-lasting, practical electric light bulb....
had to discover that hello was the least ambiguous greeting by voice over a distance; previous greetings such as hail tended to be garbled in the transmission. Similarly, the terseness of e-mail

E-mail

Electronic mail, often abbreviated as e-mail, email, E-Mail, or eMail, is any method of creating, transmitting, or storing primarily text-based human communications with digital communications systems....
and chat room

Chat room

The term chat room, or chatroom, is primarily used by mass media to describe any form of synchronous conferencing, occasionally even asynchronous conferencing....
s produced the need for the emoticon

Emoticon

An emoticon is a textual portrayal of a writer's mood or facial expression. They are often used to alert a responder to the tenor or temper of a statement, and can change and improve interpretation of plain text....
.

Modern communication media now allow for intense long-distance exchanges between larger numbers of people (many-to-many

Many-to-many

Many-to-many is a term that describes a communication paradigm. It is the third of three major Internet computing paradigms. The early Internet applications of e-mail, File Transfer Protocol and Telnet are characterized as "one-to-one ," because they are primarily communication means from one individual to another....
communication via e-mail

E-mail

Internet forum

An , or 'message board', is an online discussion site. It is the modern equivalent of a traditional bulletin board, and a technological evolution of the dialup bulletin board system....
s). On the other hand, many traditional broadcast media and mass media favor one-to-many

One-to-many

In communication, one-to-many is the act of publishing or broadcasting from one sender to many receivers.One-to-many relationships are often used when managing databases....
communication (television

Television

Television is a widely used telecommunication mass-media for transmitting and receiving moving , either monochrome or color, usually accompanied by sound....
, cinema

Film

Film encompasses individual motion pictures, the field of film as an art form, and the film industry. Films are produced by recording images from the world with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or special effects....
, radio

Radio

Radio is the transmission of signals, by modulation of electromagnetic radiation with frequency below those of visible light.Electromagnetic radiation radio propagation by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space....
, newspaper

Newspaper

A newspaper is a publication containing news, information and advertising, usually printed on low-cost paper called newsprint. General-interest newspapers often feature articles on Politics, crime, business, art/entertainment, society and sports....
, magazine

Magazine

for quarterly in Heraldry see Quartering Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of Article , generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscription, or all three....
s).

Social impact

Media technology

Media technology can refer to:article - category*Signal processing - :Category:Signal processing**Data recording - :Category:Recording***Data storage devices - ...
has made communicating increasingly easier as time has passed throughout history. Today, children are encouraged to use media tools in school and are expected to have a general understanding of the various technologies available. The internet is arguably one of the most effective tools in media for communication. Tools such as e-mail

E-mail

MSN

MSN is a collection of Internet services provided by Microsoft. The Microsoft Network debuted as an online service and Internet service provider on August 24, 1995, to coincide with the release of the Windows 95 operating system....
, Facebook

Facebook

Facebook is a free-access social network service website that is operated and privately held company by Facebook, Inc. Users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school, and region to connect and interact with other people....
etc, have brought people closer together and created new online communities. However, some may argue that certain types of media can hinder face-to-face communication and therefore can result in complications like identity fraud

Identity fraud

Identity fraud is a synonym of unlawful identity change. It indicates unlawful activities that use the identity of another person or of a non-existing person as a target or principal tool....
.

In a large consumer-driven society, electronic media

Electronic media

Electronic media are media that utilize electronics or electromechanical energy for the end user to access the content. This is in contrast to static media , which are most often Desktop publishing, but don't require electronics to be accessed by the end user in the printed form....
(such as television

Television

Television is a widely used telecommunication mass-media for transmitting and receiving moving , either monochrome or color, usually accompanied by sound....
) and print media (such as newspapers) are important for distributing advertisement media. More technologically advanced societies have access to goods and services through newer media

New media

New media is a term meant to encompass the emergence of digital, computerized, or networked information technology and communication technology technologies in the later part of the 20th century....
than less technologically advanced societies.