Mass Communication

In this age of rapid technological advancement and ease of global connection, our lives have constantly been saturated with stimuli and information from various sources—the most prominent being mass media. It is through this platform that the majority of the population, the masses, would receive and consume information about the world and events. Conversely, it is also through mass media do people seeking large audiences would broadcast their information, allowing whatever it is their trying to share to reach thousands, millions, or even billions of people. This efficacy of mass communication through mass media in transmitting information to the masses is the reason why this form of communication is so pervasive within our day-to-day lives.1

This very large outreach of mass communication is one of the main defining traits of this type of information transmission. Other than the size of its audience, mass communication is also quite different from other forms of communication, such as a typical one-to-one conversation, a phone call, or a group discussion, in the way the two sides, the sender and the receiver, would interact. Where in a conversation both parties would interact actively with one another, such as by asking questions or responding to a statement, mass communication would typically only allow a unidirectional flow of information, where the sender would send information and the receiver would only passively consume and take in that information. An example of this is the use of television as a way to advertise a service. The advertisers would actively convey their message and information to the public, but the people who watch the advertisement on television would only passively watch and listen to it. The watchers might respond or react whilst watching the advertisement, but the other party, the advertisers, would not have any way of knowing what each individual member of the audience is thinking—hence mass communication is a one-way form of

Mass media itself can be defined as various types of technology that is applied as a means in the storage or delivery of information which would then be conveyed to large segments of the population at once. This platform of communication has various outlets through which information can be shared, from simple forms such as billboards to more advanced and modern forms like the Internet. Due to how mass media would only allow a single direction of information flow, the content and perspective shared through mass media would usually have to be suitable with the general public’s ideas and opinion in pursuit of a larger audience. This is why mass media is frequently reffered to as ‘mainstream media’, though this is erroneous as mass media encompasses alternative media with their less popular content and point of view as