Poetry served as mass media in pre-print societies.

Evidence

In a society that was sophisticated and literate, but without mass media, poetry could to some extent take their place; the poet devised, for publication and dissemination, versions of events or sketches of personalities which were vivid, memorable—and slanted. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 369

Categorization

• CANDY: A tweetable one-liner: ‘Court poetry was the medieval Middle East’s mass media — vivid, memorable, and slanted.’
• DEFINE: Clarifies what ‘mass media’ meant before printing — memorable, disseminable, slanted verse.
• XREF: connects to: Pre-print cultural exposure was limited to sermons, frescos, and travelling spectacles — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 27