Mass Communication

“the process whereby media organizations produce and transmit messages to large publics and the process by which those messages are sought, used, and consumed by audiences”

“only one of the processes of communication operating at the society-wide level, readily identified by its institutional characteristics”

Mass Communication is the public transfer of messages through media or technology driven channels to a large number of recipients from an entity, usually involving some type of cost or fee (advertising) for the user.

Mass Communication

1. is the dependence on a media channel to convey a message to a large audience.
   
2. the audience tends to be distant, diverse, and varying in size depending on the medium and message.
   
3. mass communication is most often profit driven, and feedback is limited.
   
4. because of the impersonal nature of mass communication, participants are not equally present during the process.
   

Functions of Mass Communication

Surveillance

Correlation

Sensationalization

Entertainment

Transmission

Mobilization

Validation

Mass Communication and Popular Culture

Culture is comprised of shared behaviors, values, beliefs, and attitudes that are learned through socialization. As Brummett explains, “popular culture are those systems or artifacts that most people share or know about”

High Culture consists of those media that are generally not produced for the masses, require a certain knowledge base, and typically require an investment of time and money to experience them.

“Pop culture refers to mass-mediated kinds of ‘low’ art such as television commercials, television programs, most films, genre works of literature, and popular music”

Grounding Theories of Mass Communication

Magic Bullet Theory: (also called the hypodermic needle theory) suggests that mass communication is like a gun firing bullets of information at a passive audience.

Two-Step Flow Theory: suggests that mass communication messages do not move directly from a sender to the receiver. Instead, a small group of people, gatekeepers, screen media messages, reshape these messages, and control their transmission to the masses.

Multi-step Flow Theory: suggests that there is a reciprocal nature of sharing information and influencing beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors

Uses and Gratification Theory: suggests that audience members actively pursue particular media to satisfy their own needs

Cultivation Theory: questions how active we actually are when we consume mass communication

Media Literacy

Media Literacy is our awareness regarding our mediated environment or consumption of mass communication. It is our ability to responsibly comprehend, access, and use mass communication in our personal and professional lives.

Skills we can develop in order to be media literate

• Understand and respect the power of mass communication messages.
  
• Understand content by paying attention and filtering out noise
  
• Understand emotional versus reasoned reactions to mass communication
  content in order to act accordingly.
  
• Develop heightened expectations of mass communication content
  
• Understand genre conventions and recognize when they are being mixed
  
• Think critically about mass communication messages, no matter how
  credible their source.
  
• Understand the internal language of mass communication to understand its
  effects, no matter how complex.
  

Key Terms

• cold media
• correlation
  
• cultivation theory
  
• entertainment
  
• gatekeepers
  
• global village
  
• hot media
  
• magic bullet theory
  
• mass communication
  
• masspersonal communication
• media literacy
  
• mobilization
  
• multi-step flow theory
  
• opinion followers
  
• opinion leaders
  
• popular culture
  
• sensationalization
  
• surveillance
  
• transmission
  
• two-step flow theory
  
• uses and gratification theory
• validation

A PDF of this Mass Communication Study Guide can be downloaded here.