Traditional Forms: Print Media Vs. Electronic Media

Print Media versus Electronic Media

1.0 Introduction

The dictionary defines a ‘medium ‘as ‘an intervening means, instrument or agency’ it is a substance or a channel through which effects or information can be carried or transmitted. A medium is something we use when we want to communicate with people indirectly, rather than in person or by face-to-face contact. This dictionary definition tells that something fundamental about the media, which forms the basis of the media education and works curriculum. The media do not offer a transparent window on the world. They provide channels through which representations and images of the world can be communicated indirectly with others easily. The media intercede; they provide us with selective versions of the world, rather than direct access to it. The term media contains a whole range of modern communications media such as television, the cinema, video, radio, photography, advertising, newspapers and magazines. Media texts include the programmed, films, images, web sites and so on those are carried by these different forms of communication. Many of these are often called ‘electronic’ media, which implies that they reach large audience, although of course some media are intended to reach only quite small or specialized audiences. And there is no reasons why more traditional forms such as books cannot also be seen as ‘ media ‘, since they too provide us with mediated versions or representations of the world.

2.0 Definition Printed