A Study On The Relationship Between Man And Media

In modern society, media is not just a tool to man. It as a technique has become the life environment. Man is surrounded by media and has entried "media time". On one hand, man designs, shapes and uses media; On the other hand, media also shapes men in return. This paper further analyses the media itself and the relationship between it and man in this sense.Firstly, this article defines media from the ontology. Meanwhile it analyses the media ecology's "true" and "virtual" characteristics. Secondly, it proves the reality of man's need of media via Galen's theory of the needs to make up for deficiencies, Marshall Mcluhan's theory of the needs to cope with the strong stimulus, Karp's theory of the needs of the development of the natural attributes and Innes's needs of the development of civilization. The paper further analyses media's technical and social construction according to the needs of man. It also analyses the influence on the way men entertain, the way men live, men's values and the way men think. It points out that it occurs some real problems when media provides all possibilities for men, such as subjective disappearance. Media needs to be optimized and men as an active creature have the ability to reshape media. Finally, this paper has a deeper thought about the ethical problems of media and constructs the media responsibility from two aspects--media designers' responsibility and media users' responsibility.