What is the role of technology in Mass Communication?

Answer 1

The internet, television, phones, radio.... Any type of communication that reaches numerous amounts of people in different locations. Internet and phones are two way communication, where as tv and radio would be one way communication (with the exception of hamm radio, walkie talkies, and radios of that sort.)

Answer 2

The Internet arose in the late 1960s out of efforts to share expensive computer resources provided by the military to universities across the United States. The initial network, called ARPAnet, went online for the first time in the fall of 1969. The network operated using packet switching, a method of transferring information that breaks down messages in to small packets that are transmitted separately across the network and reassembled once they are received. Through e-mail and file sharing, ARPAnet soon became a tool used by academics to collaborate and communicate across the country.

As the number of incompatible networks grew in the 1970s, Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf developed the TCP/IP protocols that would allow the networks to communicate with each other. In 1983 ARPAnet started using the TCP/IP protocols. This is commonly seen as the true beginning of the Internet.

The Internet is unique among the mass media in allowing interpersonal communication through e-mail and instant messaging; group communication through listservs, newsgroups, and discussion boards; and Mass Communication through the World Wide Web.

The World Wide Web was developed in 1989 by British physicist Tim Berners-Lee while he was working at the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Switzerland. His goal was to produce a decentralized system for creating and sharing documents anywhere in the world. The Web has three major components: the uniform resource locator (URL), the hypertext transfer protocol (http), and the hypertext markup language (HTML). Berners-Lee published the code for the World Wide Web on the Internet in 1991 for anyone in the world to use at no cost.

The Internet in general and the Web in particular were based on a set of values known as the hacker ethic. This ethic holds that information should be freely distributed and that individuals should have as much control over computers as possible.

The World Wide Web has turned the Internet into a major mass medium that provides news, entertainment, and community interaction. The Web offers a mix of content providers, including traditional media companies, new media companies offering publications available only on the Web, aggregator sites that offer help in navigating the Web, and individuals who have something they want to say.

The Web has been criticized for elevating rumors to the level of news, making inappropriate material available to children, collecting private information about users, and creating a false sense of intimacy and interaction among users.

Over the past several years, users have moved increasingly from slow dial-up connections to high-speed "always on" connections that have changed how people view and use the Internet. Media are making use of these high-speed connections to deliver content that includes a rich mix of video, audio, photos, and text.

Answer 3

Advances in information technology makes mass communication more available. For example, the Internet makes it possible for people to reach more people.

Answer 4

God knows the answer