Definition of MEDIA

 

1     a: medium of cultivation, conveyance, or expression; 

          especially: medium 2b

2     a: singular or plural in construction: mass media

       b: plural: members of the mass media

 

noun

 

1. a plural of medium.

2. (usually used with a plural verb) the means of communication, as radio and television, newspapers, magazines, and the Internet, that reach or influence people widely:

The media are covering the speech tonight.

 

adjective

 

3.pertaining to or concerned with such means:

a job in media research.

 

Usage Discussion of MEDIA

 

The singular media and its plural medias seem to have originated in the field of advertising over 70 years ago; they are still so used without stigma in that specialized field. In most other applications media is used as a plural of medium.The popularity of the word in references to the agencies of mass communication is leading to the formation of a mass noun, construed as a singular. 

 

Usage note:

Media, like data, is the plural form of a word borrowed directly from Latin.The singular, medium, early developed the meaning “an intervening agency, means, or instrument” and was first applied to newspapers two centuries ago.

 

In the 1920s media began to appear as a singular collective noun,

 

sometimes with the plural medias. This singular use is now common in the fields of mass communication and advertising, but it is not.

 

Origin of MEDIA

 

Plural of MEDIUM

 

First Known Use 1923