Everyone watches them–whether it is a sappy rom-com, or a thrilling action movie, film plays a big part in the modern culture of the world. But, as much as these films impact us, can we really consider them media? 

According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, media can be defined as “any channel of communication. This can include anything from printed paper to digital data, and encompasses art, news, educational content, and numerous other forms of information.” This definition of media is strict in that media is a form of information and communication, meaning media must communicate and inform a viewer to be media. In this definition, you can look at larger news sources like Fox and the New York Times as media, because they inform readers or viewers on recent events and communicate with people via interviews and reader submissions. But do movies fit into this category of information and communication? We must first look at the purpose of film. 

Film dates to the late 1890s, with silent, black, and white films that were shown in movie theaters in France. Many of these movies were romance and comedy. But as film evolved technologically, so did the advanced ideas and stories being told in them. Modern film bends all the criteria of early film; we see stories breaking the mold for what is possible in a movie and what kinds of messages can be told through moving images. Movies, in order to be media, however, must inform and communicate. Movies do inform, in a more abstract way, however we cannot attribute that as the main purpose of a movie, just a side effect.

A movie’s main purpose is to entertain and keep an audience. Movies do not inform the same way as media does; they inspire us to act, and the stories and morals that are taught in the stories in movie are not strict information, but rather loose implications of life lessons. Movies also do not communicate– they are a one-way source of media, and there is not direct communication between viewer and film, and film and viewer. So, the entertainment purpose of a movie drives us away from information, and communication is severed in the one-way service of film to viewer. 

So, upon failing the criteria of informing and communicating that media must follow according to our definition of media, movies cannot be considered media, but instead a medium of entertainment. What do you think– are movies media?