Mass media

Mass media is a term used to denote that section of the media specifically designed to reach a 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, mass-circulation newspapers and magazines), although mass media was present centuries before the term became commom.

The term public media has a similar meaning: it is the sum of the public mass distributors of news and entertainment and other information: the newspapers, television and radio broadcasting, book publishers, and suchlike. To this have been added more recently the Internet, podcasting, blogging, and suchlike. All of these public media sources have better informed the general public of what is going on in the world today. Some traditional public broadcasters are turning to these new areas to reach more people or quicker. These methods of communication reach a greater number of people faster than traditional oral communication. Such things as podcasting and blogging give people an oppurtunity to express themsleves in ways that can only be done with such technology.

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 (MSM). The mass-media audience can be easily persuaded one way or another (depending on the subject of discussion)whether or not they want to believe the media. Mass media can be one of the hardest forms of media to decipher what is true and what is not.

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,banners and billboards,cinema films, radio, television, the World Wide Web, billboards, books, CDs, DVDs, videocassettes, computer games and other forms of publishing. Although writers currently differ 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; Herman and Chomsky's "A Propaganda Model"). This is countered by the right-wing media critics 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.

The more recent term 'Drive-by Media' has been popularized by conservative talk-show host Rush Limbaugh in response to the proposed transfer of operations of several U.S. ports to Dubai Ports World.

Timeline

• 1453: Johnannes Gutenberg prints the Bible, using his printing press, ushering in the Renaissance
• 1825: Nicéphore Niépce takes the first permanent photograph
• 1876: First telephone call made by Alexander Graham Bell
• 1890: Telephone wires are installed in Manhattan.
• 1895: Cinematograph invented by Auguste and Louis Lumiere
• 1898: Loudspeaker is invented.
• 1906: The Story of the Kelly Gang from Australia is world's first feature length film.
• 1909: RMS Republic, a palatial White Star passenger liner, uses the Marconi Wireless for a distress at sea. She had been in a collision. This is the first "breaking news" mass media event.
• 1912: Air mail begins
• 1913: The portable phonograph is manufactured.
• 1915: Radiotelephone carries voice from Virginia to the Eiffel Tower
• 1916: Tunable radios invented.
• 1919: Short-wave radio is invented.
• 1920: KDKA-AM in Pittsburgh, United States, becoming the world's first commercial radio station.
• 1922: BBC is formed and broadcasting to London.
• 1927: Philo Taylor Farnsworth debuts the first electronic television system
• 1934: Half of the homes in the U.S. have radios.
• 1935: First telephone call made around the world.
• 1938: The War of the Worlds is broadcast on October 30, causing mass hysteria.
• 1939: Regular electronic television broadcasts begin in the U.S.
• 1951: The first color televisions go on sale
• 1957: Sputnik is launched and sends back signals from near earth orbit
• 1959: Xerox makes the first copier
• 1962: Telstar satellite transmits an image across the Atlantic.
• 1963: Audio cassette is invented in the Netherlands.
• 1965: Vietnam War becomes first war to be televised.
• 1969: Man's first landing on the moon is broadcast to 600 million people around the globe.
• 1970s: ARPANET, progenitor to the internet developed
• 1971: Intel debuts the microprocessor
• 1976: JVC introduces VHS videotape - becomes the standard consumer format in the 1980s & 1990s.
• 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.
• 1993: CERN announces that the WWW will be free for anyone to use.
• 1996: First DVD players and discs are available in Japan. Twister is the first film on DVD.
• 1996: Optical fiber cable line stretches across the Pacific.
• 1997: From Kodak, the first point-and-shoot digital camera.
• 1998: First digital TV programs are broadcast in the U.S.
• 2000: The dot.com industry crashes
• 2000: Congress passes the Children's Internet Protection Act.
• 2000: 3G (3rd generation) licenses sold for wireless internet
• 2001: LexisNexis offers 2.8 billion searchable documents from 30,000 sources
• 2003: iTunes music store offers tunes for 99 cents
• 2003: U.S. law bars telemarketers from "Do not call" phone list

Purposes

There are a number of uses for mass media including advocacy, enrichment, entertainment, journalism, and public service. Advocacy can be used for both for business and social concerns. This can include advertising, marketing, propaganda, public relations, and political communication. Enrichment can take the form of education through literature for example. Entertainment is traditionally through performances of acting, music, and sports, along with light reading; since the late 20th century also through video and computer games. Journalism is the spread of news on a massive scale and Public service announcements are cases of state or non-governmental agencies reaching out to inform the public of a pressing event.

Forms

Electronic media and print media include:

• Broadcasting, in the narrow sense, for radio and television.
• Various types of 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 documentaries.
• Internet, which has many uses and presents both opportunities and challenges. Blogs and podcasts, such as news, music, pre-recorded speech and video)
• 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.

Audio recording and reproduction

Sound recording and reproduction is the electrical or mechanical re-creation and/or amplification of sound, often as music. This involves the use of audio equipment such as microphones, recording devices and loudspeakers. From early beginnings with the invention of the phonograph using purely mechanical techniques, the field has advanced with the invention of electrical recording, the mass production of the 78 record, the magnetic wire recorder followed by the tape recorder, the vinyl LP record. The invention of the compact cassette in the 1960's, followed by Sony's Walkman, gave a major boost to the mass distribution of music recordings, and the invention of digital recording and the compact disc in 1983 brought massive improvements in ruggedness and quality. The most recent developments have been in digital audio players like the Apple iPod.

Broadcasting

Broadcasting is the distribution of audio and/or video signals (programs) to a number of recipients ("listeners" or "viewers") that belong to a large group. This group may be the public in general, or a relatively large audience within the public. Thus, an Internet channel may distribute text or music world-wide, while a public address system in (for example) a workplace may broadcast very limited ad hoc soundbites to a small population within its range. Broadcasting forms a very large segment of the mass media. Broadcasting to a very narrow range of audience is called narrowcasting. The term "broadcast" was coined by early radio engineers from the midwestern United States.

Film

Film is a term that encompasses motion pictures as individual projects, as well as the field in general. The origin of the name comes from the fact that photographic film (also called filmstock) has historically been the primary medium for recording and displaying motion pictures. Many other terms exist — motion pictures (or just pictures or "picture"), the silver screen, photoplays, the cinema, picture shows, flicks — and commonly movies. Any film can become a worldwide attraction, especially with the addition of dubbing or subtitles that translate the dialogue.

Internet

The Internet (also known simply as "the Net") can be briefly understood as "a network of networks". Specifically, it is the worldwide, publicly accessible network of interconnected computer networks that transmit data by packet switching using the standard Internet Protocol (IP). It consists of millions of smaller domestic, academic, business, and governmental networks, which together carry various information and services, such as electronic mail, online chat, file transfer, and the interlinked Web pages and other documents of the World Wide Web.

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.

Publishing

Publishing is the industry concerned with the production of literature or information – the activity of making information available for public view. In some cases, authors may be their own publishers. Traditionally, the term refers to the distribution of printed works such as books and newspapers. With the advent of digital information systems and the Internet, the scope of publishing has expanded to include websites, blogs, and the like.

As a business, publishing includes the development, marketing, production, and distribution of *newspapers - a publication containing news and information and advertising, usually printed on low-cost paper called newsprint. It may be general or special interest, most often published daily or weekly.

• magazines - a periodical publication containing a variety of articles, generally financed by advertising and/or purchase by readers.
• books - a collection of sheets of paper, parchment or other material with a piece of text written on them, bound together along one edge within covers
• literary works
• musical works
• software - a program that enables a computer to perform a specific task (includes video and computer games)

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

Influence of the Mass Media in Society

Through its various formats, the mass media can reach most people on earth. This is an incredible opportunity for communication and education among the peoples of the planet. As these technologies become cheaper, they are becoming ubiquitous and closing the technological divide that exists between the rich and poor. The plummeting prices of computer processors provide hopeful hints as to the future of technology. As the technology necessary for mass communication becomes cheaper and more widespread, the planet will indeed become smaller as news will travel even faster between people.

The effects of the rise of mass media are not all positive. Many chaff at the fact that it is seemingly impossible to escape from the media as isolation from all forms of communication is increasingly difficult in modern society. Mass media also poses the risk of concentration and whitewashing of media sources as corporations become huge in scale to benefit from economies of scale. This leads to fewer and fewer sources of content, which eliminates some of the diversity from local media production. Rupert Murdoch's ownership through News Corp of many different broadcast outlets is one example of this threat.

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