Role Of Mass Media

Mass media is a part of the modern society life today. In this age of information mass media are the powerful and the most effective tools of spreading or sharing information. With the advancement of digital technology, mass media have become a powerful and quick way to communicate either by news and views broadcast, spread ideas and messages or just to make the information available anywhere on Earth. In times of different national need, media play a role to associate the government with the general people. Media do not simply provide people with information, news and ideas but also raise various issues on socio-economic and political matters. They also create awareness and public opinions in different issues and problems. People are widely

The elements under electronic media are radio, recording and music, television and movie. Guglielmo Marconi, the “Father of Radio”, managed to send signals through air with his telegraph invention (Baran, 2009). Although the invention of telegraph was starting point for the communication but it was still under some limitations. However, Heinrich Hertz has brought the breakthrough for communication by discover radio waves which was very useful to transmit the message beyond the boundaries (Rodman, 2006). On the other hand contribution of electric is undeniable because it has contributed to the invention of radio whereby in 1880 electromagnetic spectrum was generated to transmit the radio waves with electricity (Rodman, 2006). The invention and development of the electronic device radio and the capability of “transmitting voices and music at great distance to a large number of people” lead to broadcasting. People could listen to news and enjoy entertainments in the form of audio recordings and music. The next electronic media that contributed to broadcast is television. The electronic television experimentation began in the year 1923 by Vladimir Zworykin (Wilson, 1993). Wilson (1993) adds that it was during the 1939 New York World’s Fair that television was first time demonstrated. Television is able to broadcast audio, voices, music and recording just like radio. However television allowed people to view moving pictures on the

Unlike print and electronic media, digital media uses the latest modern technologies such as smart phones, e-books and social networks and all that requires internet connection to work. Abbate (2000) informed that “the worldwide system called the Internet played a major role in developing and popularizing network technology, which placed computers at the center of a new communication medium”. The Internet evolved to a globe-spanning system linking millions of computers from a single experimental network serving a dozen sites in the United States between the late 1960s and the 1990s, (Abbate, 2000). Currently, new media poses challenges to the print and the electronic media and is now trying to succeed the other two media with the advanced technology of the internet. The new media, make it convenient to use variety of modes, more specifically the mode of image – still or moving – as well as other modes, such as sound effect and music for example (Kress, 2003). Basically, the digital media is the improved versions of the print media and the electronic media. One of the differences among them, is the degree in freedom of speech exercised in digital media compared with the other two media. People especially the young generations prefer more of media that provides attractive images or simulations. According to Kress (2003), the new media provides a low or zero cost to the user in selecting a way of