Language, and our treatment of it, evolves as culture and technology change. One place where culture and technology have changed massively over the years is the media.
It's no wonder why our listener Laurel Federbush had this question: "Has 'media' become a singular word by now? Because technically it’s plural."
That's a great question. Yes, while “media” is technically plural, its singular usage has become increasingly common and widely accepted.
Originally, "media" came from Latin, where "medium" is the singular form and "media" is the plural form. In English, by the late 1700s, "medium" was used to describe newspapers and magazines. That's because they were considered intermediaries that delivered news and information to the public.
As forms of communication expanded — including newspapers, radio, television, the internet, and social media — "mass media" emerged to describe them collectively. That's when we began to see both singular and plural usage of "media" in English.
The Oxford English Dictionary has examples of "mass media" used as a singular noun as far back as 1923. Interestingly, the plural "medias" also appears occasionally, as in this 1927 citation: “One of the best advertising medias in the Middle West.”
Both Bryan Garner and Merriam-Webster say that at this point, "media" can be either singular or plural, and that both are standard. Now "media" is often seen as a singular, non-count noun, such as "information" or "water." That shows that we're thinking of all of the various forms of media collectively .
Not everyone agrees with treating "media" as a singular noun. To hear about why the Associated Press Style Book is resisting, listen to the audio above.
