1. Media (plural of medium) are Channels of Communication.
2. Media involve "technology connecting sender to receiver."
3. Technology alters and "forms" part of the message.  "The medium is the message." said Marshall McLuhan
4. Each medium use different "codes." (e.g. The "indexes" are different.)

 Becoming a Critical Receiver of Media Messages

1. Media messages are edited versions of reality.  What you get is both more and less than the real world from which mediated messages come.
    
2. Media serve as gatekeepers.  Editorial decisions involve selecting some things to include and others to ignore -- and for reasons other than merely what is objectively important or valuable.
    
   1. Media seek viewers, readers -- they want to attract attention so they can "sell" audience members to advertisers.
   2. Media exist to make money -- they serve advertiser and owner interests
   3. Media seek to save time and money -- they go for the easiest and cheapest sources of information and programming that will attract an audience.
   4. Media are targeted.  Each media channel/outlet has a particular target audience it wishes to attract and whose interests it must serve.
       
3. Media frame content -- they give news/ information (and entertainment) a theme or context or "spin" that is added to the objective facts.
4. Media can set agendas and influence behavior or reinforce stereotypes, if you aren't a critical receiver.
    
5. Media sources need to be evaluated just like any other -- particularly when they are chosen for viewing because they are provocative, or readily available or "connected."  Being a critical receiver of media is undermined by "cocooning."
    
6. New Media (internet based - Web 2.0, wireless based, etc.) are interactive and "deceptively" social.