Concept
Postman’s distinction between a technology — the machine or tool itself — and a medium — the social and intellectual environment that grows up around how the technology is used. The book’s ‘medium’ always means the latter: not the device but the environment of capacities, gate-criteria, and cultivated wants it produces. The same technology can host different media, which guards against blaming the hardware for what is really a pattern of use.
Connections
- Defined in: Where It All Gets Fucked Up
- Discussed in: Ch 10 — Political Economy of Attention, Ch 5b — Selection As The Other Engine, Ch 1 — The Information Landscape
- Evidenced by: Amusing Ourselves to Death
This is a graph landing page. Use the local graph and backlinks (right) to explore, or open the interactive ontology.