Medium - Philosophical Concept | Alexandria
Medium: A convergence point where amateur meets professional, where personal narrative intertwines with journalistic ambition, and where algorithm dictates readership, Medium is a digital publishing platform that promises both democratization of voice and the potential for echo chambers. Is it a blog? Is it a magazine? Its amorphous nature is intrinsic to its function.
While the concept of a publishing platform – a medium for sharing written thought – stretches back to the advent of the printing press in the 15th century, the platform Medium finds its direct antecedent in the early days of blogging. Consider the fervor for online journals and instant sharing as described by essayists such as Seneca ("Letters from a Stoic"), or later Michel de Montaigne via his invention of the personal essay as a literary form; yet it was the birth of the internet and services like LiveJournal and Blogger in the late 1990s and early 2000s that primed the world for a platform like Medium. Icons such as Marshall McLuhan were key in understanding how the Medium is the Message and that the means of communicating are essential in analyzing its philosophical impact. These platforms democratized writing to a wide number of authors, yet publishing environments such as the early internet lacked a key element: curation.
Launched publicly in 2012 by Evan Williams, a co-founder of both Blogger and Twitter, Medium sought to improve upon the existing blogosphere by combining the accessibility of self-publishing with the editorial direction and reader engagement features of established publications. The platform quickly gained traction, attracting writers from diverse backgrounds – academics, journalists, celebrities, and everyday individuals – drawn to its clean interface and promise of broad exposure. However, this model has evolved; Medium has since experimented with different subscription models, content strategies, and approaches to compensating writers, leading to ongoing debates about its role in the evolving media landscape. The moral landscape of Medium continues to evolve, its algorithms and editorial decisions shaping what voices are amplified and which fade into the background. The tension between democratized access and algorithmic control remains a central intrigue, mirroring contemporary concerns surrounding fairness bias and the ethics of social media.
Today, Medium persists as a significant player in online publishing. As an interesting thought experiment, contemplate the ways in which Medium will continue to shape or reflect the social and political mores of online writing and culture. As the platform grapples with issues like misinformation, virtue signaling, and the influence of cognitive bias, it serves as a microcosm of the larger dilemmas confronting the digital age, begging the question: in the constant noise of online publishing, what still constitutes a meaningful voice?