Mass media: Difference between revisions

Media technologies that intend to communicate with a large audience

The mass media is a diverse array of media that reach a large audience via mass communication.

Broadcast media transmit information electronically via media such as films, radio, recorded music, or television. Digital media comprises both Internet and mobile mass communication. Internet media comprise such services as email, social media sites, websites, and Internet-based radio and television. Many other mass media outlets have an additional presence on the web, by such means as linking to or running TV ads online, or distributing QR codes in outdoor or print media to direct mobile users to a website. In this way, they can use the easy accessibility and outreach capabilities the Internet affords, as thereby easily broadcast information throughout many different regions of the world simultaneously and cost-efficiently. Outdoor media transmit information via such media as AR advertising; billboards; blimps; flying billboards (signs in tow of airplanes); placards or kiosks placed inside and outside buses, commercial buildings, shops, sports stadiums, subway cars, or trains; signs; or skywriting.^[1] Print media transmit information via physical objects, such as books, comics, magazines, newspapers, or pamphlets.^[2] Event organising and public speaking can also be considered forms of mass media.^[3]

Egyptian movie star Salah Zulfikar on the cover of Al-Kawakeb magazine, March 1961, an example of mass media

The organisations that control these technologies, such as movie studios, publishing companies, and radio and television stations, are also known as the mass media.^{[4][5][need quotation to verify]}

Issues with definition[edit]

In the late 20th century, mass media could be classified into eight mass media industries: books, the Internet, magazines, movies, newspapers, radio, recordings and television. The explosion of digital communication technology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries made prominent the question: what forms of media should be classified as “mass media”? For example, it is controversial whether to include mobile phones and video games (such as MMORPGs) in the definition. In the early 2000s, a classification called the “seven mass media” came into use.^[6] In order of introduction, they are:

1. Print (books, pamphlets, newspapers, magazines, posters, etc.) from the late 15th century
2. Recordings (gramophone records, magnetic tapes, cassettes, cartridges, CDs and DVDs) from the late 19th century
3. Cinema from about 1900
4. Radio from about 1910
5. Television from about 1950
6. The Internet from about 1990
7. Mobile phones from about 2000

Each mass medium has its own content types, creative artists, technicians and business models. For example, the Internet includes blogs, podcasts, web sites and various other technologies built atop the general distribution network. The sixth and seventh media, Internet and mobile phones, are often referred to collectively as digital media; and the fourth and fifth, radio and TV, as broadcast media. Some argue that video games have developed into a distinct mass form of media.^[7]

While a telephone is a two-way communication device, mass media communicates to a large group. In addition, the telephone has transformed into a cell phone which is equipped with Internet access. A question arises whether this makes cell phones a mass medium or simply a device used to access a mass medium (the Internet). There is currently a system by which marketers and advertisers are able to tap into satellites, and broadcast commercials and advertisements directly to cell phones, unsolicited by the phone’s user.^{[citation needed]} This transmission of mass advertising to millions of people is another form of mass communication.

Video games may also be evolving into a mass medium. Video games (for example, massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), such as RuneScape) provide a common gaming experience to millions of users across the globe and convey the same messages and ideologies to all their users. Users sometimes share the experience with one another by playing online. Excluding the Internet, however, it is questionable whether players of video games are sharing a common experience when they play the game individually. It is possible to discuss in great detail the events of a video game with a friend one has never played with, because the experience is identical to each. The question, then, is whether this is a form of mass communication.^{[citation needed]}

Characteristics[edit]

Five characteristics of mass communication have been identified by sociologist John Thompson of Cambridge University:^[8]

• “[C]omprises both technical and institutional methods of production and distribution” – This is evident throughout the history of mass media, from print to the Internet, each suitable for commercial utility
• Involves the…