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Mass media
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{{redirect|Media}}
'''Mass media''' is a term used to denote, as a class, that section of the media specifically conceived and designed to reach a
mainstream very large audience (typically at least as large as the whole population of a
nation state). It was coined in the
1920s with the advent of nationwide radio networks and of mass-circulation newspapers and magazines. The mass-media audience has been viewed by some commentators as forming a
mass society with special characteristics, notably atomization or lack of social connections, which render it especially susceptible to the influence of modern mass-media techniques such as
advertising and
propaganda. It is also gaining popularity in the
blogosphere when referring to the mainstream media.
Etymology and usage
'''Media''' (the plural of ''medium'') is a truncation of the term ''media of communication'', referring to those organized means of dissemination of fact, opinion, entertainment, and other information, such as
newspapers,
magazines,
movies cinema films,
radio,
television, the
World Wide Web,
Billboard (advertising) billboards,
books,
CDs,
DVDs,
videocassettes,
computer games and other forms of
publishing. Although writers currently change in their preference for using ''media'' in the
singular ("the media is...") or the
plural ("the media are..."), the former will still incur criticism in some situations. (Please see
data for a similar example.) Academic programs for the study of mass media are usually referred to as
mass communication programs.
An individual corporation within the mass media is referred to as a
Media Institution.
The term "mass media" is mainly used by academics and media-professionals. When members of the general public refer to "the media" they are usually referring to the mass media, or to the
news media, which is a section of the mass media.
Sometimes mass media (and the news media in particular) are referred to as the "
corporate media". Other references include the "mainstream media" (MSM). Technically, "''
mainstream media''" includes outlets that are in harmony with the prevailing direction of influence in the
culture at large. In the United States, usage of these terms often depends on the connotations the speaker wants to invoke. The term "corporate media" is often used by
leftist media critics to imply that the mainstream media are themselves composed of large multinational corporations, and promote those interests (see e.g.,
Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting;
Noam Chomsky's "
propaganda model"). This is countered by
right-wingers with the term "MSM", the acronym implying that the majority of mass media sources are dominated by leftist powers which are furthering their own agenda.
History
During the
20th century, the growth of mass media was driven by
technology that allowed the massive duplication of material. Physical duplication technologies such as
printing,
record pressing and
film duplication allowed the duplication of books, newspapers and movies at low prices to huge audiences.
Radio and
television allowed the electronic duplication of information for the first time.
Mass media had the economics of linear replication: a single work could make money
proportional to the number of copies sold, and as volumes went up, units costs went down, increasing profit margins further. Vast fortunes were to be made in mass media.
In a democratic society, independent media serve to educate the public/electorate about issues regarding government and corporate entities (see
Mass media and public opinion). Some consider the
concentration of media ownership to be a grave threat to democracy. (For examples of some American newspapers' history of
jingoism and drumbeating for war, see
yellow journalism.)
Timeline
*1453:
Johann Gutenberg Johnannes Gutenberg prints
the Bible, using his printing press, ushering in the
Renaisance
*1825:
Nicéphore Niépce takes the first permanent
photograph
*1830:
Telegraphy is independently developed in
England and the
United States.
*1876: First
telephone call made by
Alexander Graham Bell
*1878:
Thomas Alva Edison patents the
phonograph
*1890: First
juke box in
San Francisco San Francisco's Palais Royal Saloon.
*1890: Telephone wires are installed in
Manhattan.
*1896: Hollerith founds the Tabulating Machine Co. It will become
IBM in 1924.
*1898:
Loudspeaker is invented.
*1913: Edison transfers from cylinder recordings to more easily reproducible discs
*1915: Radiotelephone carries voice from Virginia to the
Eiffel Tower
*1916: Tunable
radios invented.
*1919:
Short-wave radio is invented.
*1912: ''Queen Elizabeth'' starring
Sarah Bernhardt is first feature-length movie.
*1912:
Air mail begins
*1913: The portable phonograph is manufactured.
*1920:
KDKA-AM in
Pittsburgh, United States, becoming the world's first commercial radio station.
*1922:
BBC is formed and broadcasting to London.
*1924: KDKA created a short-wave radio transmitter.
*1925:
BBC broadcasting to the majority of the
United Kingdom UK.
*1926:
NBC is formed
*1927:
The Jazz Singer: The first motion picture with sounds debuts
*1927:
Philo Taylor Farnsworth debuts the first electronic
television system
*1928: The Teletype was introduced.
*1933:
Edwin Armstrong invents
FM Radio
*1934: Half of the homes in the U.S. have radios.
*1935: First telephone call made around the world.
*1936:
BBC opened world's first regular (then defined as at least 200 lines) high definition television service.
*1938: ''
The War of the Worlds (radio) The War of the Worlds'' is broadcast on
October 30th, causing mass hysteria.
*1939:
Western Union introduces coast-to-coast
fax service.
*1939: Regular electronic television broadcasts begin in the U.S.
*1939: The wire recorder is invented in the U.S.
*1940: The first commercial television station, WNBT (now
WNBC-TV)/New York signs on the air
*1951: The first color televisions go on sale
*1959: Xerox makes the first copier
*1957:
Sputnik is launched and sends back signals from
near earth orbit
*1960:
Echo I, a U.S. balloon in orbit, reflects radio signals to Earth.
*1962:
Telstar satellite transmits an image across the Atlantic.
*1963:
Audio cassette is invented in the
Netherlands.
*1963:
Martin Luther King gives "I have a dream" speech.
*1965:
Vietnam War becomes first war to be televised.
*1967: Newspapers, magazines start to digitize production.
*1970s:
Darpanet, progenitor to the
internet developed
*1971:
Intel debuts the
microprocessor
*1980:
CNN launches
*1980: New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones put news database online.
*1981: The laptop computer is introduced by Tandy.
*1983:
Cellular phones begin to appear
*1984: Apple Macintosh is introduced.
*1985: Pay-per-view channels open for business.
*1995: With the launch of internet friendly
Windows 95, the internet grows exponentially
Purposes
Mass media can be used for various purposes:
*
Advocacy, both for business and social concerns. This can include
advertising,
marketing,
propaganda,
public relations, and
politics political communication.
*
Enrichment and
education, such as
literature.
*
Entertainment, traditionally through performances of
acting,
music, and
sports, along with light reading; since the late 20th century also through
video and computer games.
*
Journalism.
*
Public service announcements.
Forms
Electronic media and print media include:
*Broadcasting, in the narrow sense, for
radio and
television.
*Various types of
Data storage discs or
tape. In the 20th century, these were mainly used for
music.
Video and
computer uses followed.
*
Film, most often used for entertainment, but also for
documentary film documentaries.
*
Internet, which has many uses and presents both opportunities and challenges.
Blogs are unique to the Internet.
*
Publishing, in the narrow sense, meaning on paper, mainly via
books,
magazines, and
newspapers.
*
Computer games, which have developed into a mass form of media since devices such as the
PlayStation 2 ,
Xbox, and the
Gamecube broadened their use.
Toward the end of the 20th century, the advent of the
World Wide Web marked the first era in which any individual could have a means of exposure on a scale comparable to that of mass media. For the first time, anyone with a
web site can address a global audience, although serving to high levels of
web traffic is still relatively expensive. It is possible that the rise of
peer-to-peer technologies may have begun the process of making the cost of bandwidth manageable. Although a vast amount of information, imagery, and commentary (i.e. "content") has been made available, it is often difficult to determine the authenticity and reliability of information contained in (in many cases, self-published) web pages. The invention of the Internet has also allowed breaking news stories to reach around the globe within minutes. This rapid growth of instantaneous, decentralized communication is often deemed likely to change mass media and its relationship to society.
"Cross-media" means the idea of distributing the same message through different media channels. A similar idea is expressed in the news industry as "convergence". Many authors understand cross-media publishing to be the ability to publish in both
print and on the
World Wide Web web without manual conversion effort. An increasing number of
wireless devices with mutually incompatible data and screen formats make it even more difficult to achieve the objective “create once, publish many�.
Contrast with non-mass media
Non-mass or "personal" media (point-to-point and person-to-person communication) include:
*
Speech
*
Gestures
*
Telephony
*
Postal mail
* Some uses of the
Internet
* Some
Interactive media
See also
*
Alternative Media
*
CNN effect
*
Media controversy
*
Media imperialism
*
Media studies
*
Multimedia literacy
*
Media transparency
*
Propaganda Model
*
Locative media
*
Media and ethnicity
External links
*((fr.en.nl)) [http://www.cybartv.org/ news concepts and applications of communications with the interactives multimedia and networktechnologie]
-
MANA - the Media Alliance for New Activism
-
LanguageMonitor - Media Metrics and Analysis
Category:Mass media
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see
Mass media
{{sisterlinkswp|Category:Mass media}}
The '''media''' is the whole body of communications that reach large numbers of the public via
radio,
television,
film movies,
magazines,
newspapers and the
World Wide Web. The term was coined in the
1920s with the advent of nationwide radio networks, mass-circulation newspapers and magazines.
''Mass media'' is media which reaches a mass audience. That audience has been viewed by some commentators as forming a
mass society with special characteristics, notably atomization or lack of social connections, which render it especially susceptible to the influence of modern mass media techniques such as
advertising and
propaganda. In everyday use the word media is normally used on its own.
{{catmore}}
Category:Information science
Category:Society
Category:Communication
Category:Culture
be:КатÑ?горыÑ?:Сродкі маÑ?авай інфармацыі
cs:Kategorie:Sdělovacà prostředky
de:Kategorie:Medien
el:ΚατηγοÏ?ία:ÎœÎσα Μαζικής ΕνημÎÏ?ωσης
es:CategorÃa:Medios de comunicación
fr:Catégorie:Médias
ko:분류:대중 매체
id:Kategori:Media massa
it:Categoria:Media
hu:Kategória:Média
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sv:Kategori:Massmedier
tr:Kategori:Medya
wa:Categoreye:Medias
zh:Category:大眾媒體
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