Media Anthropology ( Task 1 -Week 1 )

Definitions of Media

Media - Films, tapes and other audio-visual materials that require the use of special listening or viewing equipment.

Media: Any format for information storage that requires special listening or viewing equipment microfilm, microfiche, videotape CD-ROMs.

The beginning of human communication through artificial channels, i.e. not vocalization or gestures, goes back to ancient cave paintings, drawn maps, and writing.

In the arts, media (plural of medium) are the materials and techniques used by an artist to produce a work.

In drawing, "media" refers to the type of held dry tool used and the base onto which it is transferred. The "held dry tool" normally means a pencil, or stick medium, referred to as a "crayon". Small particles of broken-off stick medium are transferred to a base or plane of production on which the artwork is produced. A typical base is paper, but canvas and other surfaces can also be used.

In painting, "media" refers to both the type of paint used and the base (or ground) to which it is applied. Paint’s medium refers to what carries paint’s pigments, and is also called a "vehicle" or a "base". A painter can mix a medium with solvents, pigments, and other substances in order to make paint and control its consistency.

In the art of printmaking, "media" tends to refer to the technique used to create a print.

The Persian Empire (centred on present-day Iran) played an important role in the field of communication. They devised what might be described as the first real mail or postal system, which is said to have been developed by the Persian emperor Cyrus the Great (c. 550 BC) after his conquest of Media. The role of the system as an intelligence gathering apparatus is well documented, and the service was (later) called angrier, a term that in time turned to indicate a tax system. The Old Testament (Esther, VIII) makes mention of this system: Ahasuerus, king of Medes, used couriers for communicating his decisions. Herodotus described the system in the following manner:

"It is said that as many days as there are in the whole journey, so many are the men and horses that stand along the road, each horse and man at the interval of a day’s journey; and these are stayed neither by snow nor rain nor heat nor darkness from accomplishing their appointed course with all speed."

The word "communication" is derived from the Latin root "communicate". This was due to the Roman Empire also devising what might be described as a mail or postal system, in order to centralize control of the empire from Rome. This allowed for personal letters and for Rome to gather knowledge about events in its many widespread provinces. More advanced postal systems later appeared in the Islamic Caliphate and the Mongol Empire during the Middle Ages.

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 McCaughey (Thistle rose, 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 in communication, termed smart mobbing, involves ad-hoc organization through mobile devices, allowing for effective many-to-many communication and social networking.