Is named media to the different technologies and mechanisms that allow a specific transmitter to contact one or more receivers, either in real time or delayed time, through sound waves or written text, saving short or very long distances. For instance: television, radio, newspaper.
In this concept they have a place from the great Mass Media of contemporary times (such as television), to more intimate and personal media (such as the telephone).
Types of media
The traditional classification of the media established three categories: primary (that do not involve machinery), secondary (technically enhanced for broadcast) and tertiary (both sender and receiver use a device).
A more current consideration could distinguish three large groups of the media, according to the role they play in our lives:
- Mass information media. Whose transmitter can reach numerous receivers in a normally daily, regular and unidirectional informative act (without interchange of roles).
- Interpersonal communication media. That connect two or more people in a private and often intimate way, allowing the exchange of roles (bidirectionality).
- Entertainment media. Whose scope is usually massive and oriented to leisure and enjoyment, often hand in hand with the arts, mass culture or contemporary forms of community.
Examples of media
- Television. One of the great protagonists of our times. There is a television set in practically every house in the world, broadcasting its variety content, news, entertainment and advertising through the thousands of existing channels.
- Radio. The great displaced by the television invention, today occupies a place in transport vehicles that cannot do without the sight and attention of their driver, as well as in the formation of communities vintage listeners.
- The newspaper. Among the most important and long-established mass media, the written press continues to be one of the main ones, although its gradual migration to digital formats is accused. Advertising, information and opinion have a place in their economical and disposable format.
- The phone traditional. Created in 1877, it is a device in frank disuse, displaced by the vertiginous growth of the mobile phone and Internet communications. It responds to a model of sound and static communication very from the last century.
- Cell phone. One of the booming communication media, hand in hand with the Internet, the cell phone has surpassed the traditional schemes of the home phone, incorporating the sending of messages and information of all kinds through different remote exchange services.
- Post mail. Still in use in many countries for purchasing and sending official communications, but totally displaced by modern means of communication. Britain, in fact, boasts of having the best postal service in the world.
- The fax. The fax (facsimile) was an important predecessor of contemporary image transmissions. It allowed the sending of images converted into digital impulses through the telephone network. A hybrid between phone and copier.
- Cinema. Invented at the end of the 19th century, it is sustained today thanks to new technologies (today almost everything is digital), being a favorite medium of millions of viewers worldwide.
- Social networks. Among the most recent contributions of the Internet are social networks, unifying various devices equipped with connectivity in the same idea of a virtual community of interests. It is a tremendously popular and controversial technology, due to the powers and dangers of such a large exposure.
- The human voice. The first and most ecological means of communication. Wireless, free, limited and immediate reach.
- Internet. The great source of contemporary emissions and communications, the network of networks, the information superhighway… whatever we want to call it, it is the most powerful means of data transmission in the world. It functions as a global, fast and diversified packet broadcast and protocol system.
- Cartoon. Surviving its nineteenth-century origins and its golden age in the mid-twentieth century, it has managed to migrate to the digital format to preserve its importance for young and child audiences, but also for adults and artists.
- The Telegraph. This is already the history of communication. It was a device that used electrical signals to receive and transmit encrypted messages. It was the world’s first form of electrical communication, invented in the 19th century.
- The book. Perhaps not as fast, or massive, or modern as other media, the book remains the everlasting medium for communicating to a sender and to several receivers (one at a time per book), both in terms of information and entertainment. It’s portable, inexpensive, and traditional, but it goes against contemporary speed.
- Amateur radio. Radio amateurs use radio bands to transmit and receive messages privately, in the style of radio stations. walkie-talkies of watchmen and caretakers. It is an almost artisanal medium: short range and low sharpness.
- Email. The contemporary version of the telegram allows the sending of letters and documents and even files of any kind through a private, intimate and confidential digital mail service.
- Journals. Whether dissemination, entertainment or specialized, they are a form of updating knowledge in vogue, given its periodic nature and focused on an established audience.
- The publicitary advertisements. Crowding the cities are the constant advertisements that broadcast their messages to everyone who passes by and notices them, seducing their gaze with graphic resources and witty phrases.
- Official gazettes. State and official resolutions of a State are made known to the population not only through the mass media, but also through gazettes and printed documents, whose role is not only informative but documentary.
- Sign language. Specially created for deaf-mutes, it reproduces the different meanings to be transmitted through gestures, without the need to pronounce a single word.