While light cruisers were an actually combat naval vessel that since has all but disappeared due to the changes in naval surface warfare, the medium cruiser of sci-fi is all but fantasy.
Like many of the ship classes discussed in the Ships of the Line blogpost serial, the majority of the light and medium cruisers found in science fiction are in RPG, video games, and the occasional mainstream work. The Light/Medium Cruiser of Science Fiction Either way, there are a shit ton of cruisers in Trek. It took FASA and other Trek wargames to further develop the Federation line of starships. Most of the Federation ships in service are classified as "starships" to dilute the waters further, and even pressed, canon Trek sources simply say, "oh, they're cruisers." Some of it has to do with the attitude of Trek to not be about conflict and space battles, but a hopeful vision of the future. Plus, the word cruiser is not committal and does not sound immediately military or aggressive like an Dreadnought or battlecruiser. When one examines the bulk of starships in the Star Trek universe, they are mostly cruisers, especially in the Federation, but why? Being a former Trekkie, I can only guess that cruiser classes offer a flexible platform of an agency like the Federation's Starfleet, where their main aim is not a military organization, but one of keeping the peace and exploration. However, once the war was over, the demand for these types of cruisers dried up, and during the Cold War, the missile cruiser and the Destroyer classes took over. The 2nd World War was the last gasp of glory for the light cruiser, were the demand for warships was at fever pitch. By World War One, most Light Cruisers were under 5,000 tons and mounted six inch guns as the main armament. The first of the light cruiser was the 1878 HMS Mercury of the Royal Navy, and the German Gazelle class further defined the light cruiser classification in the 1890's. Light Cruisers were classificated by the London Treaty of 1936 as an cruisers with 6.1 inch guns and were sometimes called "light armored cruisers" that were designed for speed, and not a naval slug-fest. During the heyday of warships around World War One and World War Two, there was a number different types of warships, and light cruisers were among these, rounding out the more popular Dreadnought battleship.
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