media: superficial introductory questions

What are media? Should that have read “what are mediums”? Is media a matter of “processing and conveying” information? What is the utility of studying media? Is to better equip oneself to “read and view intelligently?” Marshall McLuhan wouldn’t see these as the important questions, I’m fairly certain. But was he concerned with media impact on conciousness, social life or “service environments”? Or was McLuhan’s claim that mediums create their own environments? Cultural critics are concerned with media impact on culture. For this reason they tended to disdain the mass media, at least at one time. But what is culture? Is culture everything? Or is culture the aesthetic-intellectual element of human expression? What is the distinction between information and art? Is there one?