Strictly speaking, media is the plural of medium and should be used with a plural verb. (Mediums is the correct plural when the sense of medium is a clairvoyant or fortune teller.) But consider the usage notes below.
Examples:
- “All media exist to invest our lives with artificial perceptions and arbitrary values.” (Marshall McLuhan)
- “Television is called a medium because anything good on it is rare.” (Fred Allen)
Usage Notes:
- "It is apparent that media is on its way to becoming a collective noun which can take singular or plural as the writer wishes, particularly when the media is/are seen as a single homogeneous group."
(Philip Gooden, Who's Whose: A No-Nonsense Guide to Easily Confused Words, Walker & Company, 2004) - "media: Prefer press and television or, if the context allows it, just press. If you have to use the media, remember they are plural."
(The Economist Style Guide, 2005) - "The etymologically plural form media is often used as a singular to refer to a particular means of communication, as in The Internet is the most exciting new media since television. Many people regard this usage as incorrect, preferring medium in such contexts. People also use media with the definite article as a collective term to refer not to the forms of communication themselves so much as the communities and institutions behind them. In this sense, the media means something like “the press.” Like other collective nouns, it may take a singular or plural verb depending on the intended meaning. If the point is to emphasize the multifaceted nature of the press, a plural verb may be more appropriate: The media have covered the trial in a variety of formats. Frequently, however, media stands as a singular noun for the aggregate of journalists and broadcasters: The media has not shown much interest in covering the trial. This development of a singular media parallels that of more established words such as data and agenda, which are also Latin plurals that have acquired a singular meaning."
(The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th edition, 2000)
Practice:
(a) "I do not regard advertising as entertainment or an art form, but as a _____ of information." (David Ogilvy)
(b) "The news _____ are, for the most part, the bringers of bad news." (Peter McWilliams)
