What is Media?

On my second lesson of Media Studies I learnt the keyword 'media' and it's meaning, which is: 'the media' refers to the different channels we use to communicate information in the every day world. I also leant the different types of media, such as television, film, magazines, radio, the Internet - social networking, advertisement etc. We then got together as a class and discussed the reasons why we wath TV and came up with reasons such as, distraction, entertainment, to follow specific events, socialisation and to be informed on the news. Looking further into this we discussed the differen ways that media feeds us information and how it has improved over the years. It first started with 'the hyperaemic needle' which is the idea the media fed people information and people would believe it because they were a passie audience, everyone was fed the same information no matter how different they were, the information is unmediated. The media then improved to the idea of the 'two-step flow' after realising that the hyperaemic needle didnt work because people filter information according to their social surroundings meaning it happens in two steps (which gives it the name two-step flow). Stuart Hall then came up with the Reception Theory which basically meant they could produce media for certain age, gender, class an ethnicity. Which is known as preferred reading, giving the audience what they want.