Comments on: Media is

By: We Are the Social Media | Grammar Guide | Part of the Freelance Writing Jobs Blog Network

Tue, 30 Mar 2010 13:48:45 +0000

[...] Jeff Jarvis at BuzzMachine offers a compelling argument to treat the media as singular. He used to agree with my assessment of “media” as a plural noun. But now he doesn’t. He makes a good case, too. [...]

By: Gerardo

Gerardo — Wed, 27 May 2009 17:36:05 +0000

Thanks for your input to this site! I love and I think you make a good job. Thank you for taking your valuable time to share with us. Visit my site: aviary-greatlife

By: earn higher wage

earn higher wage — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 06:41:16 +0000

If you say media… it is broad.. you cannot put it in one word..,the process of it and how it is distributed..media is in the eye of the beholder also..

By: BuzzMachine » Blog Archive » What is literacy?

BuzzMachine » Blog Archive » What is literacy? — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 20:11:35 +0000

[...] is no longer broken into separate means of presentation and delivery; they are all mixed in together [...]

By: Minneapolis Web Design | Desaraev

Minneapolis Web Design | Desaraev — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 17:59:31 +0000

The lines have definitely crumbled a lot and more to come. Video online, news online, apple tv, and newspapers slowly going out of business do to the amount of free information online and on tv.

By: steve baker

steve baker — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 16:14:23 +0000

Data is, too.

By: Eric Gauvin

Eric Gauvin — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 12:24:30 +0000

Some grammar trivia, “news” is derived from the plural, as it still is in French, “les nouvelles”.

I guess “the news” really means something like “the things that are new.” So theoretically perhaps at one time we could speak of just one “new.”

By: Alan

Alan — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 10:04:59 +0000

Sorry Jeff I was using “channels” in the marketing sense – different mediums of communication i.e. TV, radio, the Web, cinema etc.
Also, I don’t think it makes sense to talk of the media as a singular because they are so diverse and often act in different ways – not as one or even in a simialr way.
I doubt you can even talk about the Press as if they act as like one body and certainly not websites. Does it really make sense to say something like “The Web is for/against Obama”?
Statements like “The media is powerful in influencing opinion” are defensible but not all “media is” statements are.

By: Jeff Jarvis

Jeff Jarvis — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 23:48:25 +0000

But television is singular though it has many channels and forms, eh?

By: Alan

Alan — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 23:01:25 +0000

Forgive me for being pedantic, but I’m a sub and it goes with the territory…
I see the point you’re making, but “The Media” has always been singular in effect by being a collective term. That’s why we use it like a singular.
Channels, on the other hand, are, and increasingly are becoming, more plural – look at how audiences are fragmenting to the many new ones. And not all channels are the same. Is radio really the same as the internet? Are paper the same as Twitter?
Sure we is the Media, but we is using many channels.

By: We Are the Media, This Is the Media | Megan Taylor: Web Journalist

We Are the Media, This Is the Media | Megan Taylor: Web Journalist — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 22:03:02 +0000

[...] Jarvis was interviewed for On the Media regarding his decision that the word media, so long the bane of grammar students, is not plural but singular. [...]

By: Warren Harrison

Warren Harrison — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 18:34:31 +0000

So the media is defined as that which is associated with journalism?
Very narrow…

Warren.

By: Patrick Yen

Patrick Yen — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 16:57:35 +0000

Oh, how I love semantics! Thanks for sharing this Jeff. And I agree with you, media most certainly "is" [converging] as we continue to approach Panoptic Singularity.. Sousveillance any one?

By: SpaceyG

SpaceyG — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 16:02:25 +0000

Need a press pass? Try Office Depot. They have these great little pouches you can sling around your neck that, once you print-up whatever strikes your fancy in the way of credentials, look tres official. Just add a few CNN, ABC, etc. lariats to your neckline and you can get into the freakin’ Pentagon. It’s all DIY, hon. Look busy.

Come to think about it, I need to give Bernie Marcus a call and see about adding a DIY Media chain to his mix of stores… now that Nardeli’s safely out of Home Depot and annoying the heck out of Chrysler instead.

Would love to explore the product mix for this concept of stores… everything from fancy lariats to that jazzy cam Jarvis just linked all our enquirering minds to.

I mean, if you can go into any Pet Smart and type out a tag for your dog for a few bucks from a vending machine, why can’t we just go into The DIY Media Store and crank ourselves out a press pass when we need one?

By: Jerry Courtney

Jerry Courtney — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 15:55:43 +0000

Regarding the comments on monetizing this new media in which we troll, seems there is no better time than the present – this exact present which is trying in terms of monetizing anything – to figure it out. Necessity is the mother of invention.

Great piece, Jeff.

By: John S

John S — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 15:40:47 +0000

We are I and I is us and we are all together.
Soon media is a freelance profession and everybody’s a journalist/multi-media specialist and we can all make our own press passes. Who gives those out, anyway?
-Wondering in Minnesota, where the Star Tribune is on borrowed time.

By: Jeff Jarvis

Jeff Jarvis — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 15:17:29 +0000

Max,
i believe you forgot the “heh.”

By: Luis

Luis — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 15:13:03 +0000

Totally agree with media as a singular concept. No matter where you are coming from, you are now digits, often changeable (like energy) from video to just audio, from audio to text, from text to audio…

IT convergence also means media convergence.

By: Max Kalehoff

Max Kalehoff — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 15:04:12 +0000

“When I came into the business, we had to pick a medium for life (or at least until we went into PR).” Are you implying that (sometimes) multi-disciplined PR people may have something to teach journalists?

By: Tyler

Tyler — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 15:02:10 +0000

Fortunately or unfortunately, the singular media relies more and more on free labor to produce the dinosaur food that is money. The new singular media allows “we” to create content, and enough of “us” are willing to do this without needing any reimbursement other than attention. Hits, comments, and the chance at a “voice” are the new wages in the singular media.

By: Jeff Jarvis

Jeff Jarvis — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 14:44:38 +0000

Robert,
These days, what you get instead is a pink slip.

By: SpaceyG

SpaceyG — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 14:09:15 +0000

Too bad I, Me, Mine Media, Inc. don’t pay no better wages. Wage?

By: Walter Abbott

Walter Abbott — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 13:31:52 +0000

Jeff,

Good column. The “media” is and was always an information distribution system, not a producer of a product. Everyday folks are quite capable of managing information distribution on their own, now that the tools are widely available to do it.

“News” as historically defined was only able to command a value because of the monopoly status of the broadcast systems that controlled its distribution – newspapers, radio, television. They got to say when, where and how it was dispensed.

That monopoly is gone forever and anyone who can’t see it is too stupid to be in the “news” business.

By: Eric Gauvin

Eric Gauvin — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 13:17:21 +0000

…and “it” didn’t even mention your book!

By: Chuck Boyce

Chuck Boyce — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 13:01:53 +0000

[feel free to respond to my thoughts or ignore them, but here are the things running through my head at the moment as I ponder how I will pay the rent.]

…but the dinosaurs still take home nice paychecks while “we” scrounge to survive.

I can’t count on two hands any social media people that 1. don’t have a day job that subsidizes them or 2. who didn’t leverage their past dinosaur media cred to spin off into the “we” mediascape.

…when does the “we” media pay the bills?

…must “we” survive an ice age first that kills off the dinosaurs once and for all?

Gathering scrapes in Ireland,

Chuck