Any medium (plural: media) is something through which a message or code is given to us. Simply put, any act of communication going through a medium is referred to as media. In this lecture we are referring to mass media as a cultural industry or institution and to its products as cultural forms. Chris Barker defines mass media in the following way:

“The mass media are those institutions of communication such as newspapers, magazines, television and the film industry that produce and distribute texts on a large scale in the context of capitalist modernity. The functions of the mass media might be seen as those of providing information, entertainment and education.”

Thus by media we refer to mass media under capitalist modernity. The definition given by Barker argues that media forms come to us through institutions of communication in capitalist modernity whose main functions are dissemination of information, entertainment and education.