Rather than treating media as neutral carriers of information, 'Media Before Meaning: Perception Depends on the Medium Used', views them as active perceptual architectures. Each medium configures the sensorium differently, extending certain faculties while muting others and thereby structuring how reality becomes intelligible. Five media are investigated as distinct perceptual domains: photogrammetry and virtual reality; language; video; sound; and physical objects. Each operates as a specific extension of human perception, translating the world into data, narrative, images, vibrations or material presence. By juxtaposing these modalities, the work highlights the instability of perception itself: reality changes as the method of mediation changes.