Glossary of Terms

There are a few words I love to use that everybody else loves to use, too. They have dictionary definitions and a million different personal ones. Here’s Poster Mag trying to set things straight just so no one gets confused. Let me know if what I’m saying makes sense.

Culture: Whatever is going on with people at whatever point in time. What are people doing? What are people thinking? What are people saying? It’s not what you do for money. It’s not what you learn at school. It’s the feeling that gets stuck in your teeth at the in-between. The one you just can’t keep out no matter how hard you try.

Feeling: It’s easiest to pinpoint culture by its media, but what’s even bigger is the feeling. Something is shared in the air we breathe and the people you walk by. A lifetime is spent trying to get it out in words or pictures or films or paintings. You could spend a whole life just trying to see if what I feel is what you feel, too.

Art: Whatever is made with the aim of putting a feeling into something we can all see.

Media: What probably comes to mind when you think culture or cultural criticism. The most clear-cut examples of cultural criticism tend to be about pieces of media like movies or albums. It could also refer to a video game, a newsreel, an article, a podcast, a book. Basically anything you can imagine going on a screen.

Medium: The form a piece of media or cultural object takes. A book can be read in your hands, or listened to, or scrolled through if you have the pdf. It’s the same book, but different mediums.

Mediation: The process by which media or a cultural object takes form through its medium, and how the medium changes what effect an object has on the viewer. Technology often has a hand in shaping the eventual effect. An easy example is writing: from pen and paper to a keyboard to a screen. These are all levels of mediation that remove us further and further from the initial experience. You can think about movies and how they went from film to digital. You can also think about the viewing experience itself, how going to the movies turned to popping in a DVD turned to seeing what’s on streaming. Point is, the word ‘mediation’ and how I’m using it here has its roots in media studies, so its mainly about how different mediums alter how media and its meaning are received. The other point is, you can also use this idea to describe how other experiences change as technology develops, and the effect that has on what’s trying to be communicated in the first place.

Technology: Often thought of as the big bad wolf, but also kind of useful sometimes—at least in moderation. It’s the reason I got to make this website, but also the reason why I’ll have so much to say on this website. Essentially any scientific advancement that ends up fundamentally changing or altering any aspect of daily life.

Theory: A bunch of old goops and geezers writing densely-packed books that they just send out to other goops and geezers, but also sometimes interesting if you pick up the right book. Often introduces an idea, concept, or framework for thinking about the world. Most often most interesting when written by someone who doesn’t fall under the previously-cited class of alleged goops and geezers.

Cultural Criticism: Writing about culture which connects a specific object, feeling, or experience to a bigger point about how people seem to be and why it matters. Can be about basically anything, from art to media to technology to a feeling or something totally different. Can sometimes make use of theory, or comment on mediation. May include aspects of analysis, reportage, anecdote, or prose. All in all, writing that seeks to make sense of what’s going on in the world by looking at what people are choosing to do even when no one’s asking them to.

Essay: A loose term to describe any ambiguous piece of writing that doesn’t quite seem to fit in anywhere else. My favorite type of writing.