Media

Media: The Types of Traditional and Digital Medias

Communication is very important for humanity. Throughout history, communication media has evolved to satisfy human comfort. These are instruments by which the communication process is performed. Since the oldest artifact until the most advance, have helped people with their daily lives. To understand this, we can identify the types of traditional and digital medias and their advantages and disadvantages.

The objectives of media are to inform, educate, entertain, persuade and promote. Traditional medias are artifacts used before the apparition of telecommunications. For example, books, newsletters, newspapers and magazines are traditional medias. Some advantages of this type of media are their low cost and easy distribution like newspaper, things with long and rich contents like magazines and books, language enrichment, and have the ability to send physical objects with a formal classic newsletter. The disadvantages are that it gives too much information; some like magazines and books have a high cost of production; information flows slowly and all of this is produced with paper, a material that it is taken from nature and its consumption cause pollution.

On the other hand, we have the digital or modern media, instruments used after the apparition of telecommunications. Modern media consists of the telegraph (one of the first modern media, it is no longer used), television, radio, telephones and cellphones and the internet. Some advantages of digital media are that information flows more quickly and is presented in a direct and easy manner to understand; communication arrives to millions of persons at same time, in different parts of the world; to bring knowledge and entertain. Psychological and social problems, bad influences and high costs are some of the disadvantages of this type of media. The industrial revolution and technology has done all of these things and it has benefit and prejudiced our daily lives in many ways.

Communication medias are an important part of our life. Thanks to this, the entire world is connected enabling information to arrive to every part of the planet. Also allows social relationships in large distances. Our responsibility is to use medias in a way that benefits us and does not prejudice any person. This guarantees a great life style.