ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the position that the concept of mediation includes more than the channels that carry information, more than awareness of the producers of media messages, and more than the effects of the content of such messages. The study of mediation requires an awareness and understanding of the ways that all media technology produces unique forms of information which in turn have potent effects on producers, programmers, messages, receivers and the social construction of reality. A theory of mediation should reconcile the current bias by stressing the development and continuity of media technology and its effects. The issue of environment is essential in any theory of mediation. A change in political or social environment can limit the need for certain forms of communication and create the need for others. Other mutants, such as 3-dimentional movies or Smell-O-Vision, have failed to adapt to the environment.
