The media 'is' out to get us?

Or is that 'are' out to get us? Brooke Gladstone and Bob Garfield of On The Media reminded listeners this week that 'media' is the plural of 'medium'.



But has popular usage irrevocably changed its definition? As the title of this post suggests, it's commonplace to find references to a singular, monolithic "media", which Gladstone suggests stems from a perception of corporate concentration and 'group think' mentality.

"Do we [On The Media] say, for example, “The media is out to get us” or “The media are out to get us?” We chose “are.” Grammatically it’s a no-brainer... The singular of “data” is “datum.” The singular of “media” is “medium.”

Guilty as charged. How commonplace is the singular usage though? The popular use of a word often portends the future for that piece of dialect, even if the arbiters of proper definition trail behind.


To find out, I conducted a highly unscientific analysis of both Google Trends and Google search results. The singular won both: Google Trends shows the singular used 4-5 times as often in queries and Google search results show the singular with over 11.2 million results to the plural's meager 4.7 million.

On The Media's guest Jeff Jarvis goes on to suggest that the singular is appropriate not because of consolidated corporate control, but because mediums have coalesced to the point where a distinction is no longer relevant.

"Now, still photographers can now do video on their still cameras. Print reporters are doing video as part of their stories. TV reporters are doing video and text and graphics and everything else. So it all becomes one... We all own it now."

Public opinion and arguments about a convergent future noted, Gladstone and Garfield remain unswayed, wrapping up the piece declaring, "are." They are right - for now - just look it up in the dictionary. But the future of "media" is clearly up for grabs.