Mass Communication

First, this subject is still being debated by scholars, teachers, and parents. There is a theory called "strong media effects" which says the media are very influential, especially in teaching kids to do certain things. (It is usually applied to negative behaviors, like drinking, acting in a violent manner, etc.) Using this theory, we can say that since the media often portray drinking as fun (especially in commercials), or as a necessary part of being social (adults on drama and comedy programs are frequently depicted as having a drink or two, and drunks are often the subject of jokes), these depictions give kids the impression that they should be drinking too.

But not everyone accepts the theory of strong media effects (including me). Yes, the media can influence kids. Yes, it does seem like drinking is pervasive on TV and in movies. But kids can also be influenced by their home life, by their relationship with their parents, by what their peers are doing, by their teachers, etc etc. If parents are very honest with their kids about the positives and negatives of drinking, this may influence teens to think carefully before giving in to peer pressure. If kids have a relative who is in recovery from alcoholism, this too can affect a young person's attitude. I do not believe that just watching TV programs will make kids drink. If parents teach their kids about media literacy (how to analyze what they see on TV or in movies or commercials), there is a good chance that their teen may resist the temptation, or wait till he or she is older, or only become a social drinker, or in my case, make the decision to never drink at all.

Actually, it is "mass" communication (two words) you are asking about. Mass communication refers to using a mass medium to send your communication. The mass media (medium= singular, media= plural) include radio, television, newspapers, magazines, books, movies, internet, and recorded music. Your message to the audience might be spoken, or it might be written. It might be songs, political speeches, interviews with celebrities, jokes, talks by experts about medicine or sports, or some other kind of communication... But when you send it out by using the mass media, that is how mass communication occurs.

Mass communication can reach large audiences-- in fact, it can reach people all over the world. But often, the audience is anonymous (we don't know, for example, who heard that song or who liked that speech); and mass communication also does not offer instant feedback or an instant reaction -- there is a delay between when the person hears (or reads or watches) it and when they can react to it. For example, I just wrote a new book and maybe you will buy it. But while I am sending my communication through the mass medium of books, it will take a while between the time you buy it and read it, and when you can get back to me to tell me what you think.

First, feedback in this context does not refer to a loud and distorted sound coming out of your speakers. This kind of feedback refers to a response or a reaction from the audience. In mass communication, feedback is delayed because there is no way for the speaker or performer or author to know what every member of the audience is thinking or feeling. For example, I just wrote a new book. (Books are an example of mass communication.) I hope you will read it, but when you do, how will I know whether you like it or not? Even if you send me an e-mail, there is a delay between when you got the book, when you read it, and when you sent the e-mail.

Or, let's say I just watched my favorite program on TV. I want to tell the lead actress that I think her performance was amazing. However, there will be delay from the time I send the message to when she receives it (assuming she receives it at all). SO, one characteristic of mass communication is that when the message is sent out via radio or TV or a magazine or the internet or some other mass medium, there is a gap between when the public reacts to it and when they are able to respond. That is why feedback is said to be "delayed."

I assume you are asking about David Berlo. First some context: When radio came along in the early 1920s, almost nobody in the academic world studied it, since it was thought to be just a fad. But as radio grew more popular, scholars gradually became interested in how mass communication occurs; by the late 1940s, this led to a number of theories that tried to explain the various types of oral communication-- including that which occurs between two people (perhaps on the telephone, or perhaps in person), or that which occurs through an electronic medium like radio or TV.

In 1960, David Berlo took the dominant theory, created in 1949 by Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver, and expanded upon it, since he believed it was too simplistic. Shannon & Weaver's model said communication was linear: there was a Sender (S), a receiver (R) and a channel, a means of transmitting the message (C). The channel did not refer to a TV channel-- it meant a method or means of sending the message-- like by talking on the telephone, or sending a letter, or using a radio/TV broadcast. But Berlo said communication could not be reduced to just S-R-C. One needed to consider the emotions and attitudes of the people involved in sending and receiving the message, as well as considering the content of the message-- for example, some messages were nuanced or complex and thus more difficult for the receiver to understand. Berlo said there were four steps to communication, which he abbreviated as S (Source), the person who sends the message, factoring in that person's communication skills, attitudes, knowledge of the subject, etc; M (Message), which is encoded and sent through C (a channel, a means or method used to send the message); that leads to R (Receiver), the person who receives and decodes the message. I enclose a link that thoroughly explains Berlo's theory of SMCR.

To get a degree in Mass Communication, one would typically need to take classes for journalism, communications, advertising, public relations, psychology and sociology. The actual classes required vary a little depending on the school so getting a comprehensive list would require one to contact the school.

Gutenberg invented the printing press. At the time (circa 1450), it was not a huge success. There was resistance from the Church, which wanted to restrict what the average person could read, and from the scribes who controlled which kinds of information got committed to writing and then disseminated. However, soon, the value of the printing press became obvious. It was the first step in mass producing books (and other printed materials like pamphlets and newspapers): once the printing press became a fact of life, authors could get their books out to the public more quickly (and in larger quantities); and readers did not have to wait for a scribe to create one copy at a time. The printing press also put an end to the monopoly the Church had over which information was permitted to the reading public. Now, books on a variety of subjects could be type-set and published, rather than just the hand-written manuscripts controlled by the Church.Many sources say Gutenberg's invention was essential to the Age of Enlightenment, when so many new ideas were flourishing.

Stories are more likely to be inaccurate or less thorough.

false

no

Within the discipline Communications, there are any number of areas, each named distinctly for the purpose of study and scholarly research. Mass Comm is one such area. No, Mass Communications is not a profession. There is a myriad of professional Occupations within the fields course work.

Mass communication plays a big role in nearly everyone's life. Mass communication includes television, radio, internet, newspapers and magazines, books, recorded music, and movies. There are few people who do not make use of these mass media, whether for entertainment, information, or education. People use mass media to get the news and weather, to hear their favorite songs, to watch their favorite programs, to enjoy the latest films, to learn about current issues, etc.

1. authoritarian (controlled media)

2. libertarian (free media)

3. soviet (communist)

4. social responsibility

In many ways. First of all, you have to think that the communication became massive with the years and that we've allways had biased messeges, even when the xaman, the wizard, the ancient man, whoever they are, was the ones telling us stories. It was their bias. That's the difference. At that time, the acess to culture wasn't the way we know as today. Once a story was told, it became well accepted by the people, and possibly it was taken by the truth. There was a few facts, in comparsion with today, to form a culture. That's where the story begins. The mass communication today reaches almost every point in the planet and it put in contrast very different cultures. In one hand, you may be a person with a multi cultural characteristic because of that. In the other hand, you may feel your culture under represented, diminished in face of another cultures. It is a good starting point, I think..

1. because i want to improve myenglish skills and communicate to people
2. because i want to be able to speak to everyone.

What are the factors that characterise mass communicatio

Decoding is step two of a process first described by communication scholar Stuart Hall. He first discussed step one-- encoding. Encoding refers to creating or producing a message; decoding refers to the listener or audience interpreting and understanding that message. For example, a company that sells candy bars wants you to buy one of theirs, rather than their competitor's. So they create a fun television commercial (encoding). You see it on TV and you interpret and understand what was being told to you (decoding).

I don't know you personally, so I don't know how you are influenced by mass communication, but it's safe to say that the majority of us are very much affected by what we see, hear, and read in the mass media. This includes radio, television, the internet, recorded music, movies, books, magazines, and newspapers. All of these media in some way entertain, inform, or educate us, and they certainly transmit messages about our culture.

The mass media have greatly affected the culture of many countries-- some people would say the effect has been negative, but for the most part, the mass media are an essential and generally positive part of life. The media tell you what the important stories are in the news, let you know about the weather, introduce you to famous politicians and entertainers and athletes, help you to learn more about history, entertain you and provide companionship, and teach you about the norms and customs of the culture (one of the purposes of the mass media is to transmit the culture from one generation to another). Often, media exposure creates fads, hit songs, memes, and catch-phrases, and it can also persuade people to buy certain products. And by seeing a popular celebrity wearing a certain style, many people will want to emulate that "look."

The media are well-known for promoting consumerism (most media have commercials, an aspect that critics like to complain about); but there is more to the media than just telling us about cool new products. The media can also be educational: an immigrant who comes to America may never have seen the flag nor known much about our president. By watching TV or reading magazines, he or she gain useful knowledge about American life; and by listening to how English is spoken on TV or radio, that immigrant can become more familiar with the language. The mass media are also a unifying factor during a crisis-- when there is a catastrophic event, people turn to TV or radio or internet or news magazines to learn more and to understand what happened (and why).

Radio was the most important. Every combatant nation encrypted its messages in as complex a code as possible, knowing the enemy would be listening for broadcasts and trying to crack the code to read the messages. For many years after the war it was kept a secret how successful the Allies had been at decrypting enemy transmissions. The Germans used the Enigma machine to encrypt their messages, which they believed to be unbreakable without the message "key" (the initial setting of the complex machine) which was changed daily. But the British, with help from Poles (whose postal service had used commercially purchased early versions of the Engima), using one of the world's first computers, were eventually able to read a large portion of this traffic. American codebreakers were able to decrypt large amounts of Japanese traffic as well, which contributed greatly to the decisive victory at Midway, and made the killing of Admiral Yamamoto possible. In many armies forward observers (FOs) with the frontline troops were able to use their radios to call up the artillery and correct its aim to bring artillery fire directly on to the enemy. This had not been possible in previous wars. The standard radio of US ground troops was the SCR-500 (Signal Corps Radio Model Number 500) which was a very heavy unit, about seventy pounds, and not always reliable. The "walkie-talkie" first made its appearance in WWII with US troops. These were huge contraptions, about the size of a loaf of bread. There were no printed circuit boards, no transistors yet, so all radios of every type had a bunch of vacuum tubes inside them, and were very heavy and took time to warm up before use. The US also had "field telephones", as they had in the First World War, which had to be connected to one another by wire. This offered the advantage that the enemy could not hear what was said, unless he infiltrated and cut the wire to install his own headset, something the Japanese often did and the Germans sometimes. The wire could be cut, by shellfire explosions or infiltrating enemy soldiers, and when the phone went dead somebody had to go out and run their hand along the wire until they found and spliced the break. By late in the war the US had perfected using FM radios to allow ground controllers with tank units to speak directly with pilots in aircraft flying ground attack support, and thus direct their attack onto the enemy. The US made around 70 large scale amphibious attacks during the war, and forward observers landing on the beaches with the assault troops were able to call in naval gunfire from the ships off the invasion beaches. All American and British tanks had radios in them. In the Russian Red Army only the unit leaders tanks were radio equipped. Airplanes of course had radios, but Americans on bombing missions tried not to use them much, because every nation had the ability to use RDF - radio direction finding - to locate and pinpoint the source of a radio transmission, which would draw enemy fighter planes to attack the bomber formation. Similarly, spies operating in occupied Europe spying on the Germans had radios, but they tried to use them only at the times specified for their transmissions, and to send their messages very quickly, to give as little chance as possible for Gestapo agents in RDF vans riding around the cities to pinpoint their location. Ships at sea often observed radio silence, to avoid giving away their position, as the Japanese did on the way from Japan to attack Pearl Harbor. Ships at sea could use semaphore flags to speak to each other. This was a specially trained signalman with a flag in each hand, which he held in positions to spell out each letter of a message. At night, powerful spotlights with a shutter device over the front could be used to "blink" morse code messages between ships. The US Navy and other navies also had TBS - "talk between ships" - a low powered system that was supposed to allow radio communication between ships in a formation, which was not supposed to carry too far, and thus ought not to be picked up by enemy listening stations and give away the ships' position. But atmospheric effects, such as "skip", could in fact carry those TBS transmissions a very long way on some occasions. Within the US regular telephone lines could be used, and anywhere telephone lines reached teletypewriters could be used to send messages. Telegrams were still important. Most next of kin of US servicemen killed or wounded were notified by a telegram from the War or Navy Departments. Wives on the home front lived in dread of seeing the telegram delivery guy appear on their doorstep. Between the US and Europe, ND the US and Hawaii, there were undersea cables, the transatlantic ones dating from the late 1800s, which could be used to send "cable" messages which the enemy could not intercept.

The printing press was the beginning of mass communication. It allowed books (and later, other materials) to be printed quickly and in larger quantities, rather than having to rely on hand-copied and hand-written manuscripts (which could only be done one at a time). Thanks to the printing press, new publications (whether Bible stories, or poems, or plays, or later on, newspapers) could get from the author to the public in much less time.

This was the era before there was the internet, social media, or even cable TV. People communicated via telephone, by sending letters, listening to radio, watching television (there were only a few channels), or reading books, magazines and newspapers. The fact that there were only a limited number of ways to communicate with other countries made it much easier for an autocratic government, such as in the Soviet Union, to censor what people could hear or see or read.

Today, when governments try to do this, many people can usually get around it by going to social media and finding out the information their leaders are trying to hide. But during the cold war, some countries had more communication and others had much less. The United States tried, through Voice of America (VOA), to send radio programs to communist countries; a couple of music programs were allowed in, but for the most part, signals from VOA were jammed, so that people in communist countries (or "behind the Iron Curtain," as it was called back then) could not hear other points of view. And even in relatively free countries like the United States, the government consistently stressed that Communism and Communist leaders were a danger to the world and to America. People were taught to fear what the Soviet Union might do, and both the Russians and the Americans were regularly told by their media not to trust each other.

Field telephones, runner, carrier pigeons, early radio and wig wagging.