meaning of mass media and its importance in mass communication

Topic: Meaning of Mass – Media and its importance in mass communication

Name: Gohil Hetalba

Roll no: 08

m.a.- ii  sem – iv

Paper no: 15 mass communication and media studies

Year = 2013 – 2014

Submitted to: smt. S.b. Gardi.

                                 Dept. Of English

                                 Maharaja Krishna kumarsinhji university, Bhavnagar (Gujarat)

v    Meaning of mass media and its importance in mass communication

This century is wholly dedicated to technology. It’s the age of information explosion. Everyone around us is stuffed with information. A person with ought much knowledge of computer is considered an illiterate person. We find aged people learning computer from young generation. The use of smart ones and internet has forced us to study the effects and importance of Mass media in our life. Here , I am suppose to discuss the Meaning of Mass Media at length and its importance in Mass Communication .

           Individuals with high levels of trust in the mass media tend to be healthier according to a new study of people. Mass media aims to reach a very large market, such as the entire population of a country. Mass media means _

                 “A means of public communication reaching a large audience”.

 “ The mass media are diversified media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience by mass communication. The technologies by which the communication occurs are many in varieties.”

              With the explosion of digital communication technology in the late 20^th and early 21^st century, the question of what forms of media should be classified as “mass media” has become primary. In the 2000s a classification called the “seven mass media” was popular. Those seven are

1.    Print

2. Recordings

3. Cinema

4. Radio

5.   Mobile phones

6.  Internet

7.   T.V.

There is a controversy among the scholars whether to include the cell Phones as the mass media or not.

“Mass Media refers to medium which can communicate a message to a large group often simultaneously”.

                                  The print media use a Physical object such as a newspaper, book, pamphlet or comic. Through this physical objects the information is imparted.

           Outdoor media is a form of mass media. It includes billboards, signs or play cards placed inside and outside of commercial buildings sports stadiums, shops and buses, some other outdoor media includes blimps and skywriting, public speaking and event organizing’.

    The digital media covers internet and mobile. Internet provides many mass media services such as email, websites, blogs, Facebook, whatsapp, and internet based radio and television. Understanding a population and Culture, which is why the field of media studies is very vast?

Ø  Five characters of mass communication  have been identified :

ü  Comprises both technical and institutional methods of production and distribution. This is evident throughout  the history of the media from print to the internet, each suitable for commercial utility.

ü  Involves the “commiseration of symbolic forms”, as the production of materials relies on its ability to manufacture and sell large quantities of the work,. Just as radio station rely on its time sold to advertisement, newspapers, rely for the same reasons on its space.

ü  “Separate contexts between the production and reception of information.”

ü  Its reach to those far removed in time and space, in comparison to producers.”

ü  Information distribution – a one too many form of communication, whereby products are mass- produced and disseminated to a great quantity of audiences.

       People often think of mass media as the news, but it also includes entertainment like television shows, books, and films. It may also be educational in nature, as in the instance of public broadcasting station that provide educational programming to a national audience political communication including propaganda are also frequently distributed through the media as are public service announcements and emergency alerts.

              Watching, reading, and interacting with a nation’s media can provide clues into how people think, especially if a diverse assortment of sources are viewed.

v    Functions

Mass Media gives information. It educates. It entertains. It transmits the heritage, it’s commercial.

v Development of Mass Media

  

EPS = Elite – Popular – Specialization

  All media develop in three stages.

1.    Elite: Media appeals to the affluent. Affluent is considered as the leasers of cultural and social trends.

2.  Popular: when the notion breaks through the barriers of literacy and poverty, it enters the popular stage and reaches the mass culture.

3.  Specialization: Here, there is demassification of the mass media due to information explosion and advancement in communication technology.  Media is consumed fragments of popular each with his own interest and cultural activates.

v      Types of communication

  

1.    Intrapersonal communication

2. Interpersonal  communication

3.  Mass communication

4.  Mass line communication

5.   Group  communication

v       Sub type of communication

                                                                                                     I.             Formal – informal communication

                                                                                                II.             Hyrical  - Vertical communication

                                                                                          III.             Universal communication

                                                                                            IV.            Cosmic communication

v        Communication 

“Communication is a process through which one person or a group of person transfer, their thoughts, ideas to other person or group of persons with the help of the media device or channel.

 A human relationship involving two or more persons who come together to share, to dialogue and commune. Thus, we can say that communication is not just an act or a process but also a social and cultural togetherness.

“Communication is a process which increases commonality but also requires elements of commonality for it to occur at all.”

                                            _ Denis Mcquail

The Sanskrit ‘Sadharanikaran’ comes closest to the term of ‘ common’ or commonness usually associated with communication.

The communication process involved a series of action taking place that involve various type of expressions, interpretation response.

 

   Sources  -  Encoding  - Channel - De

Ocoding  - Receiver      

                                                                               Feed

                                                                                             Back

v      Barriers of Communication

  Communication is affected by some Barriers. Some of the main barriers are:

ü  Linguistic Barrier

ü  Environment

ü  Mechanical

ü Physical

v      Osgood and Schramm Model

Schramm defined communication as sharing of ideas or attitudes. He endured – 3 important elements or Communication i.e. sources, message and destination. He emphasized on the encoding and decoding.

 

                     Message

                          

Encoder                                            Decoder

 Interpreter                                      Interpreter                   

     Decoder                                          Encoder

                                                      

                                                                    

                         Message

    Communication needs medium that is media to convey the message. Immense popularity among all classes, but particularly among the working class in industrial societies is one of the main features. Some more features of the Mass Media are

v Mass production and mass distribution

v Unlike ‘Elite’ or ‘high’ culture is aesthetic and literary stands are low, and commercialized, as it is mass produced programmed aimed at the mass.

ü The culture propagated by mass media is not necessarily the popular culture of the masses of the majority community in the country.

ü  This mass culture is a complex cultural phenomenon which is a creation of the mass media. It is the culture that is entirely urban process resulting from rapid industrialization and alienation from the majority culture.

v       Some models of communication

1)     Ritual Model:     The model suggests that communication is thus seen as a process of creation, representation and celebration of shared belief. An American anthropologist suggested this model.

2)    Communication as Dialogue  :   This models gives us the three key elements which are  -

a)               Liberation

b)             Participation

c)              Conscientiousness

                                    

3)    Communication as Power Relationship:         This model is based in Marxist ideology. It sees conflict and class differences rather the consensus as the function of communication. At some places, communication is an exercise in power of one individual over another, of an individual over a group, and of mass media owners and producers or professionals over audiences.

v     Indian communication Theory

This theory of communication forms a part of Indian poetics and can be traced to a period between second century B.C. and first century A.D. in the works of Bharat.

                            It draws its central, idea from the concept Sadharanikaran which is near in meaning to the Latin term communis, commonness, from which the word communication is derived. As per this theory communication is an activity among “Sahridayas” that is our nears and dears.

                  Apart from Bharat Muni’s Theory there is Hindu Theory (philosophical view) and Buddhist Theory.

v       Need for Communication

Man’s need of communication is as strong as the need to eat, sleep and love.

         Communication is as much a natural need as it is a social requirement in order to engage in the sharing of experiences, through symbol mediated interaction.

                                  It requires active interaction with our physical, biological and social environments.

              The basic human need for communication can perhaps be traced in the process of mankind’s evolution from lower species.

           Excommunication or lack of communication may lead to sensory deprivation, anxiety, depraved, judgement, and strange visions.

v      Importance of Mass Media

Media affect our modern life in nearly every way.  With a turn of a magazine page or an easy flip of the TV channel there at our disposal is a huge array of potential identity is a huge array of potential identity replicas. In contemporary society identity is continuously unstable; it must be selected, constructed and created with reference to inevitable surrounding media traditions.

                       Media holds a very powerful capacity to set social issues for mass audience to assume and talk about when we connect with the media, we act and are acted upon use and are used by the system. Main work of media is to inform the people. 

          A modern democracy cannot work without the media which are an agent between public and state, the Latin word “medius” describes a status in the middle and that is exactly where we can find media between two entities of communication. We cannot organize a meeting of millions of people together so to reach those media is the option.

                       Media have important task of entertaining and creating topics of conversation.

           But sociologist warns against a so called knowledge gap. This means that a gap develops between people who are informed and take part in cultural and intellectual life and people who are not.

v        Conclusion

Mass media have big influence on our all day life. They set trends and spread them, they influence our way of thinking in an enormous way and they have a long arm in political issues.

          Mass media has become an integral part of our lives and cannot be separated from our life. Our values and way of life in the society in this information influences era are strongly influenced by the mass media.