• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Plain Text

Copywriting that means business

  • Home
  • About
  • Services
  • Portfolio
  • Blog
  • Contact

M – MESSAGE AND MEDIUM

30th November 2009 by Paul Waddington

It takes time to understand the true potential of a new medium. At the birth of cinema, films were made by pointing a camera at a theatre stage because no-one had thought about moving the lens, or editing the movie. The earliest telephone systems were used to read books aloud to distant friends. Embryonic web pages were clumsy facsimiles of print editions.

Great writers make sure that the message matches the known capabilities of the medium.

If you’re writing for the web, for example, adhering to simple rules makes your copy more effective (see Web, writing for). But the question of whether you have matched the message to the medium can be asked of any communication.

In presentations, (see Speeches and presentations) the media you work with are your voice and slides. A good, well-delivered story that is backed up by some powerful, relevant images makes the best use of these media. Cluttered slides and multimedia trickery do not.

And until screens can truly match its portability, convenience and high resolution, paper is still the place for long stories and complex diagrams.

Filed Under: A to Z of Plain Text

Primary Sidebar

Recent Posts

  • Top posts through the years 31st October 2022
  • Copywriting across the spectrum: TOV and why it matters 11th March 2019
  • Another book on “business bullshit”? I call bullshit 26th November 2018
  • Our acclaimed copywriting workshop is back! 19th May 2017
  • Why copywriting is a craft, not an art 15th March 2017

Categories

Tags

Briefing copywriters Brochure writing Business jargon Capitalisation Case study writing Email copywriting Language development Language miscellany Nouns as verbs Powerful copywriting Powerpoint presentations Public sector copywriting Snappy copy Social networking Structuring copy Web copy Writing concise copy Writing straplines Writing white papers

Footer

Latest From Our Blog

  • Top posts through the years 31st October 2022
  • Copywriting across the spectrum: TOV and why it matters 11th March 2019
  • Another book on “business bullshit”? I call bullshit 26th November 2018

Menu

  • Portfolio
  • Blog
  • About Plain Text
  • Privacy Policy

Search Plain Text

  • Portfolio
  • Blog
  • About Plain Text
  • Privacy Policy

© 2025 · Plain Text Limited · Website by Dewar Green · Photography by IDB Creative