Mass Communication & future Prospects

Mass communication(′mas kə′myü·nə′kā·shən)(communications) Communication which is directed to or reaches an appreciable fraction of the population.) technically refers to the process of transferring or transmitting a message to a large group of people — typically, this requires the use of some form of media such as newspapers, television, or the Internet. Another definition of the term, and perhaps the most common one, refers to an academic study of how messages are relayed to large groups of people instantaneously. This area of study, most often referred to as mass comm, is offered at many colleges and universities worldwide as an area of study, and some colleges teach nothing but mass comm. Due to its pertinence to all people around the world, mass comm is becoming more popular and may offer graduates careers in various countries worldwide.

जनसंचार (Mass communication) से तात्पर्य उन सभी साधनों के अध्ययन एवं विश्लेषण से है जो एक साथ बहुत बड़ी जनसंख्या के साथ संचार सम्बन्ध स्थापित करने में सहायक होते हैं। प्रायः इसका अर्थ सम्मिलित रूप से समाचार पत्र, पत्रिकाएँ, रेडियो, दूरदर्शन, चलचित्र से लिया जाता है जो समाचार एवं विज्ञापन दोनो के प्रसारण के लिये प्रयुक्त होते हैं।

जनसंचार माध्यम में संचार सब्द की उत्पति संस्कृत के चार धातु से हुई है जिसका अर्थ है चलना अथवा जब हम भव या जानकारी को एक से दुसरे तक पहुचाते है और वह प्रक्रिया सामूहिक रूप मैं होतब वह जनसंचार कहलाती है ! कोम्युनिकेसन शब्द की उत्पति लैटिन के 'कम्युनिस्ट' शब्द से मIणि गयी है ! जिसका अर्थ है सम्प्रेसन द्वारा किसी के भावनाओ को उसके विचारो एवं अनुभूतियो को खोलकर पढ़कर देखकर नियंत्रित करना ! जनसंचार का अर्थ बताना चलाना फैलाना भी है मूलतः तीन तत्वों से संचार की सरंचना होती है १) संचालक २) सन्देश ३) प्राप्तकर्ताजनसंचार के कई स्वरुप है जैसे :- पत्र पत्रिकाए, पुस्तके, रेडिओ, टी.वि, न्यूज़ पेपर, कंप्यूटर, इन्टरनेट,
जनसंचार के माध्यमो द्वारा हम बहूत से श्रोताओ को प्रभावित कर सकते है! जनसंचार का की सफलता का सारा अर्जन उसमे प्रयुक्त भाषा को जाता है सर्वेश कमलेश तिवारी जी के अनुशार जनसंचार माध्यम उन्मध्यमो को कहा जाता है जिसके द्वारा एक समूह मैं किसी भी सन्देश सुचना को बड़ी तेज़ी से पहुचाया जा सके!
The term mass communication was coined in the 1920s, with the advent of nationwide radio networks, newspapers, and magazines, which were circulated among the general public. The distribution of information to a wide range of people remains the main function of mass communications, even today. Mass communications are widely used, primarily because it is a rewarding exercise which may award a person or company with brand and name recognition, instantly increasing credibility. Commonly used units for analysis of mass communications are the messages, medium for communication, and the audience for whom the message is intended.
Interest in mass communications is an area of academic study that has grown steadily, and includes the study of the ways people and groups relay messages to a large audience. A number of leading educational institutions offer majors in mass communications, and many graduates in mass comm can find jobs in the news media, advertising or public relations agencies, publishing houses, and research institutes. With the growing popularity of the Internet, the demand for writers who can generate content for the online space is growing steadily, and a number of mass comm graduates are taking up content writing for the Internet as a lucrative career option.
Changing times have revolutionised prospects in all most every career field one can find today. So many new and exciting career options are lined ahead that it is difficult to choose one. Mass communication is one such field which is attracting a lot of young these days and why not, when it has to offer such interesting career options in the fields, like various kinds of medias - newspapers, magazines, radio, television, advertisements, public relations etc. Though its presence has been there since long but it is only in recent times that it's been able to earn due recognition. Efforts are on to add professionalism to different areas of mass communication, with many universities and institutions offering number of professional courses. Mass communication covers a wide area, comprising of closely related fields of advertisement, communication and public relations. Almost all kinds of establishments whether business, government or political are availing of services, offered by these industries, therefore an encouraging sign for those looking ahead to making a career in mass communication.

Nature Of Work

Mass communication is a vast field covering many areas under it. Some of these are discussed under the following headings.

1. PRINT JOURNALISM: In short, journalism is collecting and editing of news for presentation through media. Print journalism has been one of the oldest forms of journalism. Newspapers and magazines, big or small have always been major source of news and information throughout the world and millions of readers go through them daily. Over the years, print journalism has witnessed major transformation, the simple reporting of yesteryears has taken a shape of highly specialized and professional field owing to competition and other factors. The newspapers and magazines today cover a wide range of specialized sections like political events, business news, leisure, cinema, sports, career, health and so many other subjects, which demands for professionally qualified journalists. Given the variety of subjects to choose from, one can look forward to a field of his interest and pursue several avialable courses in that direction.
   
2. ELECTRONIC JOURNALISM: Introduction of electronic communicaiton especially through broadcasting has affected the lifestyles and thoughts of masses. Communication mediums like television, radio, audio, video etc. has made possible news, entertainment, information, education related subjects reach the very far and wide places. It has to an extent sidelined other forms of communication. With the growing network of TV, satellite communication, cable services, radio stations, etc., the future of this industry seems bright. Electronic journalism offers to professionally qualified aspirants opportunities in a number of fields. Some of these are direction, production, camera, graphics, editing, sound, programme research, script writing etc.
   
3. FILMS - PRODUCERS, ACTORS, MUSICIANS AND DANCERS When we talk of films today, there is no dearth of available professional career options. Although, it is not all that easy to taste success in one of the most competitive and sought after fields, but definitely for someone sanguine and determined, it can be quite rewarding. Films have always earned recognition and fascination of masses. There are so many different groups of people associated with the so-called big screen and one has a variety to choose from the available options from technical professions like directors, producers, soundmen, lightmen, cameramen, editors etc. to artists like actors, dancers, musicians, stuntmen etc. The rapidly growing film industry and its certain future has led to various institutes offering highly professional courses. One definitely finds it useful to pursue these courses in order to hone their skills and make themselves better to compete with the best in the industry.
   
4. ADVERTISING: Advertising is brand building process of a product, idea, thought or a even a service, through effective mediums of communication. From newspapers, magazines, posters, signboards, bills to the commercials on radio, television and even Internet, advertising has come a long way. Business organisations, political organisations, social organisations, all find it important to advertise in order to influence public opinion. Since advertising is a service industry, the reputation of the ad agency depends on the effective work being done and campaign released from time to time. This makes the job even more challenging. With the advent of the multinational companies, more and more Indian agencies are tying up with the the foreign agencies to pitch for international clients which is clearly indicative of high growth in coming years in this industry.
   
5. PUBLIC RELATIONS:Once, the simple operation of publicity, today has emerged as an important management function. Public Relations, as the name suggests, is used to generate and portray, positive image of an organisation by various means. Business houses, schools, universities, hospitals, government institutions, etc. engage public relations personnels and agencies to cast and present their image, objectives and policies in the best possible light. For somebody to become a successful public relation consultant, it is imperative to have a liking to meet people alongwith excellent communication skills, ability to interact with, convince people, and build a rapport is important. The other traits should be, quick decision making abilities and good organisational skills.

Personality

The sphere of mass communication being widely spread, requires a combination of skills and traits. Different areas asks for different qualities, but for anyone to take on any of the fields of mass communication definitely requires better than average performance in whatever one does. It is not easy to get in and progressing is even difficult. In general, excellent communication skills, being a good team player are important, besides being confident and hardworking. Physical stamina and will power count in favour for jobs in mass communication. Other attributes vary from one another depending upon the area one pursues.

Career ProspectsDiversification in different areas of mass communication is witnessing a steep rise and is expected to thrive further, on account of growing professionalism and advancement in this sector. Anyone who is creative, dynamic, enterprising and has a flair to project his ideas, thoughts, observation through different mediums of communication can accomodate himself comfortably in this industry. Computers, especially the advent of Internet has furthermore brought new and challenging opportunities in the communication segment. It is attracting a more and more people from traditional forms of mass media.

Opportunities for placement in diverse fields of mass communication are available in publishing houses, radio and television companies, corporate world, entertainment industry, media industry, advertising agencies, public relations agencies, government organisations etc. As far as remuneration is concerned it varies from one area of mass communication to another. However in every area, it is much dependent on the size of the organisation, its location combined together with the level of responsibility and experience of the candidate.

Mass Communication Part-I

Approximately five hundred years ago a new form of communication arose. This "mass" communication process, which makes use of permanent text that can be made available to millions of people at the same time, has quickly become an important factor in the lives of many human beings.
By removing words from the world of sound where they had first had their origin in active human interchange and relegating them definitively to visual surface, and by otherwise exploiting visual space for the management of knowledge, print encouraged human beings to think of their own interior conscious and unconscious resources as more and more thing-like, impersonal and religiously neutral. Print encouraged the mind to sense that its possessions were held in some sort of inert mental space. - Walter J. Ong For much of human history speech and body language were the only available forms of communication. This changed when writing was developed, probably around the year 3000 BC in the area of the world that we now call the Middle East. The most obvious difference between writing and speech is in their media. Whereas speech is carried by sound waves in the air, writing is usually carried by one substance impressed upon another, as, for example, ink on paper. Even in its simplest form, the invention of writing produced significant changes in human communication.
The next major change came with the discovery of printed text in Europe in the late 1500s. Whereas written documents could only be produced by individuals, one document at a time, printed documents could be mass produced. The phenominon that we now call mass communication dates from the invention of print. Some scholars argue that the next great change occurred in or around 1950 with the discovery of the computer. However, while digital data processing certainly has brought changes to our society, we are perhaps too close to the date of its birth to evaluate it clearly.

TEXT

The fact that writing remains in existence long after it has been created is so remarkable that we give a special name, text, to the visible remains. Humans receive textual messages via their eyes. It has been argued that this visual aspect of text is important in and of itself because it shapes the way human beings pay attention to their environment, and this shapes the way that they think about themselves.
Text-using societies tend to be visually oriented, whereas speech-using societies tend to be aurally oriented. Thus, when scholars initiated the study of text, they discovered that communication not only helps shape individual relationships, but it also plays a role in defining the social environment. Those who study communication disagree as to the exact definition of the term, "text." In its broadest sense text is "that which is perceived by the reader," however, this conceivably could be any data that is taken in by the eye, and to many this seems to be too broad a concept. This section of the tutorial will limit the discussion to the narrower definition of text as "print," by which is meant marks made in one substance upon another.
TEXT AND MEANING
As was shown earlier, the Shannon/Weaver Model describes communication as a process that includes a transmitter who initiates the communication, a signal that moves through a medium, a receiver who notices the signal, and noise that may alter the signal.

The Shannon/Weaver Model

In terms of this model, text can be seen as being created by the writer and then moving through time and space until it is encountered by the reader. The medium is light waves, and the signal is formed as light bounces off of the paper and ink and into the reader's eyes. While the text is in transit, noise may act to make it less understandable -- the writing may fade, for example, or pages may be torn or missing. This is accurate as far as it goes, but it does little to demonstrate how text relates to meaning. However, it is possible to produce a somewhat different model that is more amenable to the discussion of meaning. In this model the reader, the writer and the text exist in the world, which is their environment and with which they interact. The reader and the writer interact directly with the text, and indirectly with one another by means of the text, which itself becomes a medium of communication. Thus, reader, writer and text are seen as an interconnected system. One way to interpret this model is to imagine that the writer, who has thoughts to communicate, expresses them by creating a text. The reader and the writer share a language code, and so when the reader encounters the text, he or she becomes the receiver of the writer's thoughts. But this description leads to a number of perplexing questions. For example:

• What if the writer is dead? Can a dead individual somehow be said to be communicating with the living?
  
• There are many examples of anonymous text? Who, exactly, is the writer in these cases?
  
• What if the code is only partially known to the reader, and he or she misunderstands the text? Is communication meaningful if it is based on mistakes and errors?

Attempts to answer these and similar questions have produced four basic approaches to explaining the relationship between text and meaning. Not surprisingly, these conflict with one another. As each is examined in turn, keep in mind this question: Which of these is most responsible for the meaning of a text:

0. the writer's intention,
1. the reader's interpretation,
2. the text itself, or
3. the society in which the reader and writer live?

The Writer's Intention

Perhaps the most familiar approach takes the point of view that the writer of the text, who is often called the author, created the text with the intention of communicating meaningfully with the reader. This is the approach that many of us encountered in our high school literature classes where we were taught, for example, that when Herman Melville wrote Moby Dick, he intended for us to read the book and understand his thinking on the subject.
From this point of view, the focus is on what the writer meant to say, and the reader's task is to discern the author's thoughts. Thus, when we consider what it might mean that the protagonist whale in Moby Dick is colored white, the question we must ask is, "Why did Herman Melville choose to make his whale a white one?" Military orders are an example of a kind of text that is well described by this approach. In a "military order" the intention of the writer is paramount. There is no doubt that he or she intends that a particular meaning be conveyed, and if the reader has any uncertainty of the meaning of the text, that ambiguity must be resolved by attempting to understand what the writer was trying to say. The reader has no leeway for interpreting the text on his or her own.

The Reader's Interpretation

Text is composed of symbols, and as ws discussed in an earlier section of this tutorial, the transmission of symbolic messages requires that the sender and receiver share a code by which the sender encodes and the receiver decodes the message. In military orders this code is very narrow -- the words "attack" and "withdraw," for example, have very specific meanings -- in order to insure that the sender will not be misunderstood. But the codes used in literature, and the texts of everyday life such as newspapers and magazines, are very broad and ambiguous, with many words having more than one possible meaning.
When the reader encounters such a text, he or she cannot be completely certain as to which of these meanings the writer intended. Further, the reader has led a life which contains different experiences that of the writer. Consequently, the reader is likely to make of the text something other than what the writer might have expected. In fact, those who adopt this approach point out that the reader need have no knowledge of the writer at all. Nor does the reader need to be concerned as to the writer's intentions. When the reader draws a meaning from the text, then that meaning is the reader's and the reader's alone. Anonymous text fits this approach well, but in fact, any text that is read without knowledge of its author lends itself to the reader-oriented approach. For example, consider this quotation: "And she understood that the hour had come to herself." - The Author Certainly, this sentence is understandable and will have meaning to most of its readers, even if the meaning is only "this is a quote from somewhere." But, with no knowledge of the author, and without the context of the rest of the document, how can we say that the author's intended meaning comes through? "We cannot," argue the proponents of the reader-oriented approach -- "meaning is in the mind of the reader."

3: The Text Itself

The text-centered approach argues that because the text was brought into the world by a writer who lived in the world, the text must contain essential truths about the world. As these truths are permanently embedded in the text, the reader, who is also living in the world, ought, with sufficient effort, to be able to discern them.

This approach is adopted most frequently by those who study sacred texts. These, having been created by a deity, are taken to be composed entirely of truths, and in fact, it is not unusual for such texts to assert this as a primary fact. For example: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. - John 1.1, Harper Study Bible, Revised Standard Version Every Word of God proves true... - Proverbs 30.5, Harper Study Bible, Revised Standard Version And similarly: The basic book of Islam is the Koran. This is believed to be the divine law of God as uttered by Allah himself in revelations to Mohammed, and passed on by the Prophet through word of mouth.... The authority of the Koran is believed by good Moslems to be absolute. It is without any question the most influential, and the most widely read book in all Arabic literature, and probably the most faithfully read scripture in the world. - The Portable World Bible, ed. Roberto Ballou, Penguin Books, 1986. If a text is taken in and of itself to contain the truth, then neither the intentions of its human writers nor the interpretations of its readers are relevant. The meaning is in the text, and if two readers disagree, then they must consult the text further in attempting to resolve the disagreement. There is no other authority. A telephone directory is a good example of a text that lends itself to this approach. A book that contains only names and phone numbers, and assuming that there are no errors, contains only the truth. As readers, we consult the book and take what it says as fact.
Text As EnvironmentAlthough each of the previous approaches works well for some varieties of text, none of them works entirely well for all text. In fact, most of the text that we encounter was written by someone who intended to say something; most readers extract meanings that the writer did not intend; most text contains some truth. Given this, scholars continue to argue as to which of the three approaches is the most effective.
A fourth approach attempts to resolve this dilemma by considering text as part of the human social environment. According to this approach, each author adds to the "communication environment," and each reader takes meanings from it. When considered from this point of view, the text is not separate from the world, but is part of it. Writers and readers, who are also part of the world, participate in the "textual experience."

As an example, consider the text called a "newspaper." Because many writers and editors contribute to each edition, there is no way to identify a single "author." As readers read the paper, they compare what they read to their experience in the world, and they discuss what they read with other readers. The meanings that readers take from the newspapers become the raw material of other texts, including such as the television and radio news of the day, and the next day's newspapers. The text of the newspaper is stored in libraries and other archives where it can be referenced at any time. Thus, the text becomes part of the fabric of the life of a society. This goes deeper than the simple thought that "everyone reads more or less the same text." Because the codes by which humans communicate are shared by all members of the society, they, too, are part of the communication environment. This means that the texts, the people, the interpretations, and the rules that govern the interpretations are all mutually interactive. For example, we might again consider the quote that was presented earlier: And she understood that the hour had come to herself. While readers may have no knowledge of the author of this quotation, they are not completely free to interpret the text however they might wish. The language codes that constrain the interpretation insist that the person referenced in the sentence be identified as female; that she be seen as thinking about her personal situation; and that her thoughts be considered as having something to do with time. In the same way that readers of this tutorial will share these particular meanings, all members of any particular society share a tremendously rich environment of other meanings which derive from their common codes and their common reservoirs of text. The fourth, or cultural approach points out that these resources are applied in different ways at different times. Sometimes humans express their intention as authors, sometimes they develop unique connotations as readers, sometimes they search for eternal truths. Thus, the common ground of text is found in the two complementary faces of human communication: the society and the self.
DATA AS TEXT
An even broader definition of the term "text" arises from considering the maxim that "you can't not communicate." An the words of Anthony Wilden:
Let it be emphasized that the communication of information does not necessarily imply the use of language, nor consciously perceived sending or receiving, nor consciously intended communication, nor consciously noted understanding. As already noted, every act, every pause, every movement in living and social systems is also a message; silence is communication; short of death it is impossible for an organism or a person not to communicate.Wilden 124 Thus, those who accept the existence of the communication environment, are driven to conclude that any source of information might be considered as text. For example, natural phenomena can be "read" -- a red sunset tells the watcher that it might rain tomorrow, flocks of geese flying south indicate that winter is near, and so on. In terms of this approach, scholars may view the physical world as a large, complex text which communicates a part of reality to its human readers. This notion is similar to the text-oriented approach that was described above -- the world is a text whose meaning is "true," and as observers, humans must try to puzzle out its meaning.
THE MASS MEDIA
Mass communication media make it possible to deliver messages to millions of people at roughly the same time. The authors of these messages are usually organizations, and the audiences are composed of individuals.
The telephone: speech without walls.

The phonograph: music without walls.

The photograph: museum without walls.

The electric light: space without walls.

The movie, radio and TV: classroom without walls.

- McLuhan, 248

The development and widespread use of printed text in Europe in the1500s produced a brand new form of communication. For the first time a single message could be duplicated with little error and distributed to thousands of people. First used to propagate religious texts and arguments, this "mass" approach to communication quickly caught on and was soon being used to distribute news, entertainment, and government regulations. From these first primitive pamphlets, the "mass media," as they are often called, have grown to include the print media of books, newspapers and magazines, the electronic media of television, radio, and audio/video recording, and the new media of computers and computer networks. While these media differ in many ways, they all share the characteristics by which scholars define mass communication:

• Mass communication messages are produced by organizations.
• The medium for these messages permits accurate duplication.
• The messages are distributed to large audiences at roughly the same time.

Face-to-face communication occurs on many channels, with many opportunities to send and receive messages, and with much complexity in the communication process.

Yet, the situation becomes even more complex when the many media organizations with their production and distribution of millions of messages are considered. Media may be received by millions of people, all of whom are also engaged in face-to-face communication. The intersection of these two types of communication makes for a picture that must include all communicators and their interactions with one another.

Overview of Mass Communication

 

The individual parts of this model will be described in more detail. The parts include:

0. Channels Of Distribution
1. Audiences
2. Mass Media Organizations
3. Other Organizations And Social Institutions
4. Content

CHANNELS OF DISTRIBUTION
Scholars tend to identify the various mass media by their distribution channels. Books, newspapers, and magazines are often called the "print media," while radio and television are often called the "electronic" or "broadcast" media. Two other electronic channels of distribution are also recognized as very important: "electronic recorded" media which include such as CDs, cassette tapes, video tapes, and the like -- these are electronic in nature but are sold and delivered much in the same way as books -- and "film" or "movies" which are similar to television but which are delivered in special buildings called "theaters."
Telephones are electronic media, but telephones have not traditionally been included in the "mass media" because telephones are used mainly in person-to-person communication. Similarly, computers, especially large computer networks, have the potential to be used as mass communication media, however, these are so new that their uses are still developing. Although they have no true category as yet, computers are sometimes referred to as the "new" media. The following chart illustrates the most common way of organizing the distribution channels of the mass media. As was noted above, telephones and computer networks have been omitted because at the present time they are mostly used as person-to-person, rather than mass, media, and some channels that might have been included -- posters, flyers, memoranda, filmstrips, slide shows, and video games, for example -- have been omitted not because they are unimportant, but because they are not as widely studied as the primary media.

PRINT	ELECTRONIC
BOOKS	RADIO
NEWSPAPERS	TELEVISION
MAGAZINES	FILM
DIRECT MAIL	TAPE AND DISC RECORDINGS

A mass medium's distribution channel "aims" a "flow" of messages in the direction of a particular audience. The next two sections will discuss two important aspects of this media "flow.

0. Target Audiences
   Some media are best fitted to an audience that consists of individuals, each of whom is more or less alone when the message arrives. Other media are better fitted to an audience that gathers in groups. Books, newspapers, magazines and direct mail are usually read by individuals. Film, on the other hand, is shown in theaters which gather audiences together in fairly large groups. Radio, television, and recordings are often delivered in group settings, but these groups are usually smaller than those who attend the showing of a film, and the three are also often used by individuals. The relationship between the target audience and the delivery medium are especially important to commercial media organizations because they must compute the cost and effectiveness of their media products. In the case of print media, for example, the price of each book, newspaper or magazine plays a part in a person's decision to join or not join the audience. Although many people like to read books, for example, it was only when inexpensive "paperback" books became available that the audience jumped to its present size. Media organizations that use advertising to offset their costs must pay particular attention to their target audiences because their advertisers are often interested in presenting their ads to particular groups of people. For example, the recent trend in magazine publication has been towards an increase in the number of different magazines each of which appeals to a narrow audience that is desirable to a particular set of advertisers.

Media Access and Availability
In order to receive messages from a particular mass communication medium, an audience member must be able to "connect up" to the reception end of the channel. For example, television is not available to people who do not own television sets; CDs are useless to people who do not own CD players, and so on. The extent to which an potential audience is able to make use of a mass medium is called its availability.
Availability includes more than equipment. Language also plays a role, as does geographic location and economic class. A radio broadcast in Spanish, for example, is only available to those who speak Spanish. Similarly, printed media are only available to those who are able to read, and cable television will not be available to those who cannot afford the monthly fee. Media access refers to the ability of members of the society to make use of a particular medium to send messages of their own. Print media is relatively more accessible than broadcast media. For example, anyone who can write can, at relatively little expense, print up and distribute a flyer or newsletter. Access to television and radio broadcast channels, however, is tightly regulated by the government. Even when a channel is provided, as with public access cable television, it is much more difficult and expensive to produce video than to produce print. Newspapers and magazines traditionally provide public access by means of "letters to the editor" or "editorial pages." Television and radio news do not traditionally offer this kind of access. In recent times, however, radio and television shows featuring listener and viewer "call-ins" have become popular, and this provides access to a large number of people.  Access and availability have become increasingly important with the advent of cable television and the new computer networked media. We might argue that our society's decision to require all children to attend school and learn to read has the effect of making the important documents of our society available to them. Similarly, our society's insistence that everyone learn to write and our belief in "freedom of the press" encourages citizens to access the print media.  As the electronic media have begun to replace the print media as the major channels for public information, critics have begun to question whether this societal availability and access will be continued. Government control of the broadcast channels limits access to these media to large corporations, and cable television is available only to those who are able to afford the relatively high cost of connection. These issues are now being widely debated in the United States.
AUDIENCES
An audience is a group of people who are receiving or have received a particular mass communication message. In some cases all members of the audience are paying attention to the medium at the same time -- as, for example, the television audience that tuned in just after the space shuttle Challenger exploded. In other cases, however, the attention of the audience is spread out over time -- the audience for a particular magazine, for example, may consist of people who read copies of the magazine at various times over the period of a month or more. And, in some cases, the attention of the audience may be spread over a very long period of time. The audience for Shakespeare's plays, for example, is very large and hundreds of years in duration. In the early days of mass communication research, the audience was believed to be very passive and innocent. It was supposed that members of the audience believed whatever they read in the newspapers or heard on the radio. As studies of the relationship between the audience and the mass communication organizations have progressed, the researchers' view of the audience has changed. Nowadays, the audience is believed to be active and sophisticated. That is, the audience chooses the media that it attends to, and the audience is critical of the messages that are delivered to it by the media.
The Magic BulletThe earliest theories of mass communication imagined that mass media had very strong effects on their audiences. The Shannon/Weaver model illustrates how these theories saw the media message as a kind of "magic bullet." Sent out by the organization, the magic bullets "hit" the members of the audience in their "minds" and changed their thoughts.
One of the first pieces of evidence that the Magic Bullet Theory was too simplistic came to light during research that was conducted in the wake of Orson Welles' famous Mercury Theatre of the Air "Martian invasion" radio broadcast in 1938. According to the theory, anyone who listened to the broadcast should have believed that invaders from the planet Mars had landed in southern New Jersey. Yet, although some did believe it, most did not, and the ways in which they came to not believe were very interesting.
Some listeners switched channels to see if the news was being carried elsewhere; some picked up the phone and called friends to see if they were listening and if so, to ask what they thought about it; some paid enough critical attention to the show to recognize that it was fiction. It was clear from these responses that most people did not accept the media message at face value. Rather, they took it under consideration and gave it meaning by comparing it to their prior experiences, and in many cases by talking it over with their families and friends. 
Jeremy Campbell summarizes this result: The bullet theory assumed that an audience was passive, waiting for the media to shoot a propaganda message into it, and would roll over in a state of docile surrender when hit, as long as the bullet was sufficiently powerful. Accordingly, researchers did not bother to study the audience. Instead, they analyzed the content of the messages, assuming that content was the secret of a successful propaganda bullet. However, the researchers were due for a surprise. The audience obstinately declined to fall under the spell of the messages. Sometimes they reacted in ways that were opposite to the propagandist's intentions, or enjoyed the bombardment without allowing it to change their opinions in the slightest. - Campbell, 197 Once the Magic Bullet Theory was seen to be false, researchers began to propose alternative theories and design experiments to test them out. This led to the creation of new research methods, and to a sizable growth in the study of mass communication.
Interpersonal DiffusionStudies that followed the "Martian Invasion" broadcast began to focus on the fact that members of the audience also engaged in face-to-face communications with family, friends and coworkers.
Theorists hypothesized that certain members of the audience, called "opinion leaders," would be more influential than other members. In theory the opinion leaders would make up their minds as to what the media messages meant and then tell their friends and neighbors. Research studies conducted to test this hypothesis did find that certain members of the audience were opinion leaders. However, different members were the opinion leaders on different subjects. Because of this, it was (and continues to be) very difficult to find a simple explanation for the spread, or diffusion, of the content of media messages through a society. Another finding that contributed to the difficulty of explaining diffusion came from the study of rumors. Researchers found that the accuracy of a statement spread by word-of-mouth decreases very rapidly as it travels through a population. Thus, it is hard to see how messages sent to opinion leaders via the mass media could be passed on with any accuracy. These studies resulted in the conclusion that face-to-face communication is much more important to the process whereby people form and change their opinions than the content of mass media messages
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Uses and GratificationsOne current approach to mass communication studies argues that because mass media products are highly available in American society, its audiences tend to "use" it much as they would use any other product or service.
The appearance of this approach marks an important change in the way media researchers think about the audience. Previously, they saw the audience as passive -- made up of people who simply accepted whatever was put in front of them. In these models the audience was a captive of the media organizations. In the uses and gratifications approach the audience is active. Audience members are seen as consumers of a media product, and as with consumers of other goods and services, they shop around, consider alternatives, and make choices. The earlier approaches assumed that the content of the media must be having some kind of an effect on the audience members, and researchers spent their time trying to locate and measure those effects. However, few substantial effects were ever found, perhaps because the model for the audience was too simplistic. The uses and gratifications approach seems to provide a richer way of looking at the audience. Instead of asking, "how does the media change our minds?" the uses and gratifications researchers ask "what is the role of media in our lives?" Here are some examples of the uses to which the media are put:

1. Getting the "news"
2. Getting information about available products and services
3. Starting the day in the morning or ending it at night
4. Establishing common topics to talk about with friends
5. Creating a substitute for having friends
6. Providing a way to feel connected to other members of the audience
7. Providing a way to escape from the day's problems and worries
8. Hearing someone else support our own values and opinions.

In this view media becomes just one of many cultural influences in our environment, and far from the most important.

MEDIA ORGANIZATIONS

In face-to-face communication the participants are easily identified -- the same is not true for mass communication. The mass media message is created by a team of people, and it is sometimes difficult to establish exactly who is responsible for what.
For example, the author of a book, may produce the initial set of words, but an editor (or editors) will review and alter those words, designers and graphics specialists will choose type faces, create illustrations and organize the format of the text, production specialists will manufacture the book, and marketing and sales specialists will oversee its distribution. Although it is traditional to assign "authorship" to the person who wrote the original text, all of these people play a part in the communication process. Electronic media are even more complexly organized. In a television production, for example, there will be one or more scriptwriters, a number of actors, a producer, a director, camera operators and other technical crew, and a host of others. A television show is truly a group project, with no single "author." Yet, to say that mass communication is produced by an organization is not to say that it is random or "neutral" in terms of the ideas and opinions that are expressed. Readers encounter "liberal" and "conservative" newspapers, for example, or religiously-oriented television programming, or politically-oriented music. Thus, a discussion of mass communication must investigate the nature of the organizations that produce it, and it must also investigate the social, political and economic relationships that might exist among the media organizations and their audiences. With the recognition of the active audience has come the realization that the content of the mass media is actually a product. No less than soap or breakfast cereal or automobiles, mass communication is produced and distributed for human consumption. This means, of course, that the mass media organizations have something to sell, and that the audiences are their customers. Thus, one approach to the study of mass communication is to focus on the economics of media production. Consider, for example, this outline of the economics of commercial television.
Notice that the members of the audience buy products from corporations. The remainder of the system has to do with distributing some of that revenue for the purpose of bring the corporations' products to the attention of the audience. GatekeepingThe media product passes through many levels of organizational processing on its way to the audience, and at each step in the process, the original data is filtered -- reduced in length, edited for style, censored, and so on. Each step in the process can be thought of as a gate through which the data must pass on its way to the consumer, consequently this situation is known as gatekeeping.
Suppose, for example, that a network television news team is sent to the midwestern United States to cover the heavy rains and flooding that are occurring there. The gatekeeping on this story begins with the observation of the event by the news team. The flood may extend over hundreds of square miles and affect the lives of millions of people, but the team will have time to record only a very small portion of this. Let us say that the team decides to focus on damage being done to the corn crop. This decision filters the available data by including data relating to the corn crop and excluding data relating to other crops and other types of damage.
Within the news organization many people will contribute to the production of this "story." Editors will select the bits of video to be used in the final presentation; writers will create a script for the commentator to read; graphic artists will create titles, maps, animations and other video enhancements; musicians may create a musical score for the piece and so on. Other editors will decide which evening the story will "run," and where the story will come in the sequence of stories, advertisements, and other material running that night. An anchorperson will introduce the story and various technicians will insure that it gets "on the air." During its stay in the flood zone, the news team may have shot hours of video tape, gathered many facts and interviewed many people. Yet the story as broadcast, if it is broadcast at all, will be only minutes in length. And, each gatekeeper will have had an effect on the content and style of the story. Each person will have added to or subtracted from the original data, and in his or her own way each person will have helped to formulate this particular communication product. Agenda SettingThe failure of the "Magic Bullet" theory left mass communication researchers with a puzzle. On the one hand, studies continued to find little reason to believe that mass communication was able to change people's opinions and beliefs. On the other hand, mass communication plays such a large role in the day-to-day lives of industrial societies that it seemed that it must have some kind of large impact on what people think.
In recent decades media researchers have been able to demonstrate an indirect, but nonetheless powerful, connection between what the news media presents and what people think. This connection has been dubbed agenda setting. In investigating the relationship between the top stories in the news and "what people are talking about," communication researchers found that stories tend to appear in the news somewhat prior to their becoming widely discussed among the public at large. The conclusion we might draw from this is that the media tend to set the "agenda" -- the list of items that people will be discussing. Thus, the power of the media may lie not in its ability to sway people's opinions, but rather in its role of determining what issues will be considered important enough to discuss.
Agenda setting connects the constant use of the media in our society with the results of studies that show that most people form their opinions and beliefs based on face-to-face communication with others. It has become a widely accepted theory of mass communication. CONTENTThe term "content" refers to the message that is distributed by the mass media organization by means of the mass communication channel. In American television, for example, the content includes such as entertainment, advertisements, station-breaks, news, and "infomercials."
These categories of content may be further divided. Entertainment, for example, might be divided into "genres" such as situation comedies, detective shows, soap operas, sports, and so on. The content of each medium is subject to analysis and criticism by its readers. "Literary criticism," "film criticism," and "television criticism" are all well established fields of academic study, and some members of mass media organizations make their livings by publishing their critical views. Because most readers will have been exposed to literary criticism in school, and because many critiques of film and television content are widely available, the topic will not be pursued further in this tutorial. SOCIAL INSTITUTIONSTypically, mass communication operates as a "one way street" -- messages flow from the media organizations to their audiences in a way that allows for very little immediate feedback. However, because those who work in media organizations are themselves a part of the society within which their audiences exist, there is a path by which audience response to mass communication messages can feed back to the producers of the messages.
For example, the person who edits a newspaper story may be in the audience of a radio broadcast. The radio technician may be in the television audience. The television producer may read the newspaper. And, all of these people may talk to one another about what they have watched and heard and read. Thus, "mass communication" and "interpersonal communication" seem to merge into one another. The next section of tutorial takes up the discussion of this situation.
 

Mass Communication Part-II

THE COMMUNICATION ENVIRONMENT

No act of communication occurs independently of its environment. This tutorial investigates the ways in which various aspects of the human social environment impact on the communication process.
The issue is this: Do meaningful thought and reason concern merely the manipulation of abstract symbols and their correspondence to an objective reality, independent of any embodiment?
Or do meaningful thought and reason essentially concern the nature of the organism doing the thinking - including the nature of its body, its interactions with its environment, its social character, and so on? Though these are highly abstract questions, there does exist a body of evidence that suggests that the answer to the first question is no and the answer to the second is yes.
- George Lakoff The "fundamental" Shannon/Weaver model of communication focuses on the process by which a messsage sent by one communicator is received by another. However, as this simple situation, which includes only two communicators, is expanded to include additional transmitters and receivers, the sending and receiving of messages becomes very complex -- in fact too complex to be fully explained by the Shannon/Weaver model. The search for other explanatory models begins with the receiver. Human beings become informed as they perceive data by means of their senses, and as they organize this information and give it meaning. The development of the semiotic model explains this process in terms of signs, or perceptions that bring to mind concepts about the world. Signs can be arranged in elaborate systems of codes, including the very complicated codes that are called languages, and used as a means of communication. While much communication takes place in one-on-one, or face-to-face, situations among individual human beings, communication can also take place in groups, including the very large groups that compose the audiences of the mass communication media. Thus, no communication is independent of the social environment within which it occurs. In fact, in social situations it can be said that one cannot not communicate.

THE COMMUNICATION ENVIRONMENT

Environments are not passive wrappings, but are, rather, active processes which are invisible.
- Marshall McLuhan
Most theories of communication envision communication as a process that occurs by means of messages circulated within a system of interrelated senders and receivers.

Active Environments
Although scholars typically focus their attention on the system, the environment is also of considerable importance. For one thing, a system cannot survive without its environment. For another, a system's environment is active, and some of that activity necessarily impacts on the system. Communication is carried on by individuals within the context of groups and with the use of signs whose meanings are established in part by negotiation among the members of the groups. Thus, human beings:

• continually create their own signs, and
• they continually encounter and make use of signs created by others.

Because of this the members of a society are constantly immersed in a "communication environment" that is rich in potential information. It is the presence of this environment that makes true the statement that it is impossible for human beings not to communicate.
The Importance of Everyday Life .
COMMUNICATION AND CULTURE
The boundary between society and culture, the two most complex systems on earth, is more difficult to define: at last count there were 164 definitions of culture. The definition that provokes the least disagreement is that culture is what makes societies with the same kind of economic system, the Trobrianders and the Dobu, for instance, or Italy and France, distinct from each other. This implies that culture is symbolic and imaginary, as well as real.
- Anthony Wilden
You may accordingly like to think of culture - I often do - as an enormous pumpkin, hard to penetrate, full of uncharted hollows and recesses for cultural critics to get lost in, and stuffed with seeds of uncertain contents and destiny.
- Jacques Barzun There is general agreement that human communication and human culture are related. There is little agreement as to what that means. Denis McQuail provides a summary definition If we extract different points from these different usages, it seems that culture must have all of the following attributes.

• It is something collective and shared with others;
• It must have some symbolic form of expression, whether intended as such or not;
• It has some pattern, order or regularity, and therefore some evaluative dimensions;
• There is (or has been) a dynamic continuity over time.
• Perhaps the most general and essential attribute of culture is communication, since cultures could not develop, survive, extend and generally succeed without communication.- Denis McQuail

• In the context used here, the term "culture" names the entire collection of human artifacts. This means that culture includes everything that might possibly be considered as "text," and that it therefore is the "what" that students of communication study in order to understand the "how" and "why" of the communication process.

The artifacts that humans create as they communicate with one another may become public, and in so doing, become part of the reality of others. It is these cultural artifacts, along with their associated meanings, that form the environment of human communication.
The meaning that one human assigns to a received message is based in part on the meanings that he or she has assigned to other messages in the past, and in part on the meanings that other humans have assigned to similar messages previously exchanged. In this way as individuals and their cultures interact, they are mutually responsible for the construction of the social reality of human life. IDEOLOGY
An ideology is a set of ideas that structure a group's notions of reality, a system of representations or a code of meanings governing how individual and groups see the world.
- Stephen Littlejohn
A group of people who share an ideology share a common set of ideas as to what the world is like. We have already seen that all human groups evolve patterns of behavior - institutions and roles - that become real to them, so it should come as no surprise that a group of people who share an ideology might construct a social reality that fits their beliefs. Those who study ideological behavior point out that most societies have a group of beliefs that the majority of the members of the society share. This is called the dominant ideology of the society. An ideology is a prescription for a way of life. Every society displays a general or 'dominant' ideology: a code of general values most of its people share, consciously and unconsciously, and within which various group and individual ideologies arise.
The task of a general ideology is to explain the past, the present, and the expected future of the system one is in, whether fully, reliably, usable or not. Imaginary ideologies invariably include enough elements of truth to be plausible to most people most of the time, however implausibly these elements may be interpreted and arranged.
- Wilden 91 In terms of the Berger-Luckmann model of the social construction of reality, ideologies serve to legitimize a society's institutions. Americans, for example, have an ideological belief in their right to "throw out" the current government should such action become necessary. This belief helps legitimize the institution we call the "press," which has as one of its functions the task of keeping a close watch on the government and telling everyone "what is going on." In our schools we contribute to this legitimation by teaching about situations such as the Watergate Hearings in which the press played a major role in bringing government impropriety to light. Ideologies are by nature symbolic: what they symbolize may be both imaginary and real, reality being the ultimate test of their validity. They are transmitted between people by every available means: ritual, schooling, clothing, religion, jokes, games, myths, gestures, ornaments, entertainment.
- Wilden 91 Because ideologies are so closely tied to reality, and because they are concepts, they form an important part of our communication environment. As with institutions, they manifest themselves as rules, but whereas institutions constrain our behavior and actions, ideologies constrain our thoughts and speech. DEFINING IDEOLOGYThere is considerable dispute as to the precise definition of the term "ideology." The definition we will introduce here is proposed by L. B. Brown and will serve us as a framework within which we will explore the relationship between ideology and communication. Brown suggests that all ideologies have the following characteristics.

• An ideology gives answers to important questions and defines approaches to them.
• An ideology involves commitment to a recognized position.
• Ideologies are concepts.
• The response to ideologies is therefore personal although their basis is social.
• An ideology about other ideologies itself becomes a structure to which people can cling to interpret behaviour so it screens out and simplifies the possible patterns of response.
  - Brown173

Taken together, these characteristics define an environment that operates as a set of rules, that is, ideologies act as constraints on the behavior of the social system. By encouraging certain expressions and discouraging others, and because they act at the level of concepts, ideologies put constraints on communication. Brown's criteria will be examined in detail next.
AN IDEOLOGY GIVES ANSWERS TO IMPORTANT QUESTIONS AND DEFINES APPROACHES TO THEM"Who am I? Why am I here? What should we do, and how should we do it?" Ideologies provide answers to these, and similiar kinds of important questions. For example, a society that shares an ideological belief that people should help their neighbors will turn out immediately to give assistance in the face of a natural disaster. The question, "what shall we do?" need not be discussed because the answer is obvious by means of the shared belief.
Members of an ideology may hold beliefs that members of different ideologies others find silly, inconvenient, or even hateful. However, to the member of the ideology these beliefs are part of reality, and are therefore, by definition, true. The theory of the social construction of reality argues that roles develop within institutions. One of the things that makes ideologies powerful is that by giving answers to important questions, they help define these institutional roles. Thus, within a society with an unchallenged dominant ideology "everybody knows their place" and there is no need to question rules or roles. However, most societies contain a mix of ideologies. These are often catagorized into three types: dominant, subordinate and radical.

1. The dominant ideology in a society is the one which is held by most of the people and defines what is "normal" and "right." For example, in our society it is considered normal for people to wear clothes in public places. When we see a person with clothes on, it seems "right" to us, and we give it no further thought.
2. A subordinate ideology is a set of ideas that agree with the dominant ideology in the main, but which argues for a limited amount of change. For example, in our society some people argue that it should be all right for both men and women to go topless on public beaches. This position does not attempt to overthrow the normal ideology of wearing clothes, but it cites a special circumstance (the beach as a very informal place where very little clothing is required), and a need to be fair (if men may go topless, than women should, too).
3. A radical ideology is a set of ideas that is in direct opposition to the dominant ideology. In this case the argument that nudity should be an option for anyone at anytime is a radical argument. It sets out to replace the dominant ideology with a new one. Over time, radical ideologies can grow to dominate, and dominant ideologies can dissolve and disappear. AN IDEOLOGY INVOLVES COMMITMENT TO A RECOGNIZED POSITION

Ideology is not only belief. It is also a commitment to act in support of the belief. This commitment may be so strong that people may be willing to die to preserve their ideology.
For example, the wars of the Protestant Reformation in Europe were fought between two strongly ideological groups, the Protestant Christians and the Roman Catholic Christians. Although the two groups shared many beliefs and customs, they took opposing positions on certain concepts, and when these two groups with their different realities tried to share the same space, the result was a bloody and devastating war. This aspect of ideology is especially visible in mass communication. Newspapers and magazines which are owned by individuals or groups who subscribe to a particular ideology often adjust the content of their messages accordingly. The same news event may be described very differently in a "liberal" as opposed to a "conservative" newspaper. Or some television stations may put restrictions on the types of shows that they will allow on the air. Campaigns to remove "sex," "violence," "drugs," "crime" and other themes from the mass media, or to add themes relating to various races, classes and genders are examples of action based on ideological commitment. Patriarchy IDEOLOGIES ARE CONCEPTSIdeologies occur in the mind. To this extent they are "imaginary," but concepts can contribute powerfully to the reality in which we live. Consider, for example, the two strongly oppositional positions taken in the current debate on abortion in the United States. One side argues in favor of the idea that it is wrong for one human being to kill another, and one side argues in favor of the idea that it is wrong for the government to interfere in the personal lives of its citizens.
The legal institutions of the United States have grown from the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. These institutions promise "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." In the abortion debate one group argues for liberty; the other for life. Thus, both of these groups represent dominant ideologies in U.S. society. In this particular situation these two ideologies are in conflict, and this produces the great argument on the subject. "Life" and "liberty" are concepts -- which is to say that no uniformly accepted, exact definition of either exists. Thus, these two ideologies assert different social realities, and this is one of the reasons why the debate seems to continue endlessly without resolution. Patriarchy

THE RESPONSE TO IDEOLOGIES IS THEREFORE PERSONAL ALTHOUGH THEIR BASIS IS SOCIAL

An ideology is a set of shared concepts that draws its meaning in part from the group. But ideologies manifest themselves in the actions of individuals.
In terms of the "abortion" example introduced above, women who have abortions are acting personally, as are the people who sit on the street in front of health care centers that perform abortions, as are the lawyers who donate their time to litigate court cases that apply to abortion, and so on. An ideology, therefore, is not something abstract, such as "the government in Washington," or "the economy," or "the educational system." Ideology occurs within people's own minds and affects their day-to-day lives. And, as it is the habits that people develop in their day-to-day living that eventually become a society's reified institutions and roles, ideologies thus play a significant part in the social construction of reality. Patriarchy   AN IDEOLOGY ABOUT OTHER IDEOLOGIES ITSELF BECOMES A STRUCTURE TO WHICH PEOPLE CAN CLING TO INTERPRET SO IT SCREENS OUT AND SIMPLIFIES THE POSSIBLE PATTERNS OF RESPONSESo, how do you feel about Socialists? --about Environmentalists? --about Christians? --about Jews? --Buddhists? --Republicans? --Democrats? --Feminists? --Nudists? --Meat-eaters? --Vegetarians? --Blacks? --Whites? --Hispanics? --Gays? --Lesbians? --People who watch daytime talk shows? --People who drive expensive cars?
An ideology is a social phenomenon - that is, it is a collection of beliefs that are shared by the members of a group. When one group shares a set of ideas about the ideology of another group, that is, a belief about a set of beliefs, stereotypes may develop. A stereotype is a group of concepts that presents a simplified identification of a person or group - "Feminists hate men," "Right-wing Christians hate women," "Vegetarians are wimps," "People who watch daytime talk shows are stupid"... and so on.
Unfortunately, when people stereotype ideologies of which they are ignorant, they often focus on the most negative characteristics. Nonetheless, stereotypes are not always bad. In fact they are closely related to the roles that are associates with social institutions, and they play an important part in the social construction of reality. In general, it is useful to stereotype police officers as being honest, fire fighters as being courageous, mail carriers as being dedicated, and so on because these stereotypes allow us to predict the behavior of others as we "make sense" of the social world in which we live. Once we have stereotyped a person or group, however, we usually find it difficult to treat them as "regular" individuals

Mass Communication Part-III

TECHNOLOGY

Instead of just recording reality, photographs have become the norm for the way things appear to us, thereby changing the very idea of reality and of realism.
- Susan Sontag
There is little doubt that technology is an important aspect of the communication environment, but there is considerable dispute as to the proper scope of the term "technology". In the words of scholar Raymond Williams ...[P]eople often speak of a new world, a new society, a new phase of history, being created - 'brought about' - by this or that new technology: the steam-engine, the automobile, the atomic bomb. Most of us know what is generally implied when such things are said. But this may be the central difficulty: that we have got so used to statements of this general kind, in our most ordinary discussions, that we can fail to realize their specific meanings.
For behind all such statements lie some of the most difficult and most unresolved historical and philosophical questions. Yet the questions are not posed by the statements; indeed they are ordinarily masked by them. Thus we often discuss, with animation, this or that 'effect' of television, or the kinds of social behavior, the cultural and psychological conditions, which television has 'led to', without feeling ourselves obliged to ask whether it is reasonable to describe any technology as a cause ....
- Williams Given this situation, we should not be surprised that there is much misunderstanding of and debate about the nature of human technology. Perhaps the most widely accepted viewpoint is known as technological determinism. This view asserts that human beings are naturally curious creatures who are driven to explore and invent. As the new technologies that result from these explorations and inventions become widely known and available for use, they bring about changes in the daily lives of the people who use them. This view is deterministic because it implies that technology is an inescapable part of human life -- humans can learn to live with their technologies, or at least they can try to, but they cannot stop themselves from inventing technologies. Theories of technological determinism range from pure pessimism -- the opinion that technology will eventually result in the destruction of the human race -- to pure optimism -- the opinion that humans will eventually create technologies that lead to a utopian existence for everyone. Many books have been written from these and other points of view, and, of course, there is not sufficient time to review all of them here. Instead, this tutorial highlights the work of four scholars who have contributed to the study of technology and human communication. Harold Innis, Marshall McLuhan, Walter Ong, and Elizabeth Eisenstein have been chosen because their work is interrelated, and because it demonstrates the process by which communication scholars develop their opinions and explanations. INNIS: MEDIA, SOCIETY, TIME AND SPACEHarold Innis was a Canadian economist and historian who was particularly interested in the study of societal change and whose theories focus on general principles that might explain why some societies collapse while others remain stable for long periods of time.
Innis argues that communication media play a significant role in the overall organization of a society because the dominant media of expression influence the kinds of human relationships that can develop among the members of the society. In this regard he divides media into two categories, time-binding and space-binding. Time-binding media tend to focus the attention of the society on its past. Such societies are often controlled by strong philosophical or religious institutions, are very concerned with preserving their traditional way of life, are not open to change, and are usually not very interested in conquest and expansion. Speech is an example of a time-binding medium. Societies whose only means of communication is the spoken word cannot communicate accurately over long distances, nor do they have access to printed record-keeping. This limits their ability to establish far-ranging governmental institutions. Members of such societies tend not to travel very much, or very far, and most people's daily lives are focused on family and religious traditions - the past is a very important part of everyday life. Space-binding media tend to focus the attention of a on its borders. Such societies are often organized by means of a central, non-religious government. Rather than traditions, such societies have laws which are written down and subject to change. These societies are inclined to expand by means of trade or conquest. At least some members of the society travel frequently. In such a society day-to-day life is concerned with the present and the future - with politics and economics and "improving oneself." Print is an example of a space-binding medium. When traditions can be written down, they become "laws." Everyone who can read has access to the laws, and everybody notices when they change. Print encourages the development of economic institutions such as banks and trading companies, and also the development of bureaucratic government. These tend to focus attention on economic growth and on the "state." Innis proposes a process by which the development of new media encourages change. Within a society the dominant medium of communication will be controlled by the dominant political group who will use the media to support the ideas and beliefs of the dominant group and make all others illegitimate. In this situation, the appearance of a new media of communication provides a vehicle by which those opposed to the dominant group could initiate social change. An example of this is the use of the printing press by the Protestant Christians in opposition to the hegemony of the Roman Catholic Church during the Protestant Reformation. Changes in ancient Egyptian civilization Innis's ideas became the starting point for a number of other communication scholars. Marshall McLuhan extended Innis's concept of social change; Elizabeth Eisenstein investigated the effect of the development of printing on the social structure of Europe in the late-15th century; and Walter Ong explored the ways in which oral and literate societies construct their social realities. MCLUHAN: THE BALANCE OF THE SENSESIn a culture like ours, long accustomed to splitting and dividing all things as a means of control, it is sometimes a bit of a shock to be reminded that, in operational and practical fact, the medium is the message. This is merely to say that the personal and social consequences of any medium-that is, of any extension of ourselves-result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by ... any new technology.
Marshall McLuhan's genius for phrase-making (among his creations: The Medium is the Message, The Global Village, Hot and Cool media, radio as The Tribal Drum...) made him something of a phenomenon in the late 1960s when he was treated in the news media as a prophet of the coming electronic age. Although his writing is sometimes difficult to decode, he was responsible for a dramatic shift in the way we view technology. In the words of Walter Ong McLuhan attracted the attention not only of scholars but also of people working in the mass media, of business leaders, and of the generally informed public, largely because of fascination with his many gnomic or oracular pronouncements, too glib for some readers, but often deeply perceptive. ...Few people have had so stimulating an effect as Marshall McLuhan on so many diverse minds, including those who disagreed with him or believed they did.
Although McLuhan built on the ideas of Innis, he took a very different approach to the study of media. Whereas Innis focused on the role of media in shaping the overall structure of society, McLuhan focused on the ways that different media might affect people's sensory perceptions. McLuhan's work is difficult to summarize, however, his main argument asserts that all technologies are extensions of the human body -- the automobile is an extension of the legs, the hammer is an extension of the arm, eyeglasses are extensions of the eyes, the telephone is an extension of the voice and the ear, and so on. This model of human technology produces original and intriguing observations, including, for example, that:

• Speech was the first technology because it extended, or "outered" the inner voice of an individual's thoughts,
• By means of electronic technology human beings have begun to extend themselves beyond their original bodies - telephones to speak, television to see, radio to hear, and so on - and in doing so they become physically larger,
• Computer technology is an extension of the human central nervous system, thus humans are moving in the direction of extending their brains outside of their bodies,
• Electronic technology "speeds up" human lives by bringing distant events close,
• Society's adoption of electronic media de-emphasizes dependence on print media, and this is reorganizing the social structure towards a more orally oriented social reality.

This latter assertion may be the most significant of McLuhan's insights. When he says, "The medium is the message," he agrees with Innis that a society's choice of communication media greatly influences its social organization. However, McLuhan extends Innis's concept to suggest that the media in use within a society affect its members at the level of the individual. Each of us must communicate via the available media, says McLuhan, and as these media make different demands on our senses, they directly affect our concepts, and through these our social reality. For example, the members of a society that depends primarily on printed text for its communication will make relatively more use of their eyes and relatively less use of their ears. On the other hand, a society that depends on radio and television for its communication will make much more use of its ears and relatively less of its eyes. The people who live in the "eye" society will tend to construct an "eye-oriented" social reality. The people in the more "ear-oriented" society will tend to construct a more "ear-oriented" social reality. When McLuhan speaks of the Global Village, he is suggesting that day-to-day life in today's electronic, more "ear-oriented" society is becoming less like life in the highly "eye-oriented" societies of 18th and 19th century Europe and more like life in the "ear-oriented" societies that existed before the discovery of print.
This assertion is still being debated, but there is evidence that might be taken to support McLuhan's claim. In today's United States if people want to "get in touch" with one another, they seldom write letters - they pick up the telephone and make a call. The growing use of portable and cellular phones is well documented, and as in the medieval village, one need never be "out of touch." McLuhan's work is not important because he produced a well-defined theory of technology but because so many of the ideas he presented have become part of the debate on the nature of communication media.
Media are economic staples For example, within the United States there is a growing debate as to whether "access to information media" is the right of every citizen. Our society already believes that access to water, sewer and power facilities is so important that we have declared these to be government regulated public utilities. Some people argue that as more and more services are carried out via cable systems and computer networks, that these, too, should be regulated as public utilities. The debate on this issue involves questions about public access to public information, the right to privacy, the cost of setting up "information utilities" and so on. This issue is important not only to those who might be denied access, but also to media organizations who might be subject to government regulation in the future. Who owns our eyes and ears? Perhaps the best way to encounter McLuhan is to read his books and think about his observations and comments. Question #1503 presents a series of quotations from Understanding Media for your consideration.  ONG: HOW ORAL REALITY DIFFERS FROM LITERATE REALITYInnis argued that a society's dominant communication media affect the organizational structure of the society and influence the its culture. McLuhan expanded that view to include the notion that all technological devices are communication media. On the other hand, Walter J. Ong narrows Innis' view to focus on the changes brought about in a society as it shifts from a dependency on speech to writing.
Ong asks a very interesting question - what would life be like in a society that has no ability to write. Ong calls such a society a "primary oral society," and his analyses of what he calls "the characteristics of orally based thought" provide much insight into this aspect of the communication environment. In his book Orality and Literacy Ong points out that it is very difficult for people such as ourselves - people who live in a chirographic society - to imagine what life would be like without writing. This section summarizes some of his observations. DEPENDENCE ON MEMORYWhat would it be like to live in a society where no one knows how to write? For one thing, such a society would have no way of keeping track of things other than by remembering them. In the words of Walter Ong
Try to imagine a culture in which no one has ever 'looked up' anything. In a primary oral culture, the expression 'to look up something' is an empty phrase: it would have no conceivable meaning.Participants in a culture that surrounds them with the artifacts of writing seldom think of the importance of such documents as dictionaries, indices, charts and tables. But these are very important to the life of the society. For example, if a society had no way of writing down the words in its vocabulary how would it keep track of them? Webster's Third New World Dictionary (1971) states in its Preface that it could have included 'many times' more than the 450,000 words it does include. Assuming that 'many times' must mean at least three time, and rounding out the figures, we can understand that the editors have on hand a record of some million and a half words used in print in English. Oral languages and oral dialects can get along with perhaps five thousand words or less. Suppose that a modern society decided to eliminate 90% of the words in its dictionary? How would that change the lives of the people? As difficult as it is to imagine this, the development of writing brought other, more subtle, changes. Print created a new sense of the private ownership of words. Persons in a primary oral culture can entertain some sense of proprietary rights to a poem, but such a sense is rare and ordinarily enfeebled by the common share of lore, formulas, and themes on which everyone draws. With writing, resentment at plagiarism begins to develop. Spoken words cannot be seen, and they cease to exist soon after they are spoken. Writing encouraged people to think of words as physical objects, and for the first time it became possible to imagine that people "owned" their words. THE NECESSITY OF CONSERVATIVE TRADITIONSWhen a people can only keep track of its history by, in effect, repeating the same things over and over again to insure that that remain remembered, new ideas are difficult to accept.
Lacking the ability to keep records, oral peoples have to constantly repeat the things that are most important to them. Since in a primary oral culture conceptualized knowledge that is not repeated aloud soon vanishes, oral societies must invest great energy in saying over and over again what has been learned arduously over the ages. Notice how this ties in with Innis' notion of time-binding media. With the advent of writing a culture's history and its rules can be recorded, and more importantly, easily edited. Corrections in oral performance tend to be counterproductive, to render the speaker unconvincing. So you keep them to a minimum or avoid them altogether. In writing, corrections can be tremendously productive, for how can the reader know they have ever been made? With written records, however, different versions can be compared, corrections made, new ideas criticised. In this way the development of writing promotes change. EMPATHIC AND PARTICIPATORYTo participate in the life of an oral society a person must be where the words are being spoken. More than that, those who are present at an oral presentation interact with the speaker who must be sensitive to the needs of the audience.
...oral memorization is subject to variation from direct social pressures. Narrators narrate what audiences call for or will tolerate. When the market for a printed book declines, the presses stop rolling but thousands of copies may remain.
- Ong No one is able to take a copy of the presentation home for later review. Consequently, those who were there have the sense of having participated in a unique event. Writing brings into existence the role of the "reader" -- a person who is able to imagine having attended the event from a distance. Writing separates the knower from the known and thus sets up conditions for 'objectivity,' in the sense of personal disengagement or distancing.
- OngWriting also brings into existence the role of the "author" -- someone who is not present at the event and who therefore can speak without regard for the needs of the audience. There is no way to directly refute a text. After absolutely total and devastating refutation, it says exactly the same thing as before. this is one reason why 'the book says' is popularly tantamount to 'it is true'. It is also one reason why books have been burnt.
- Ong PRACTICAL AND FOCUSED ON THE PRESENTOng points out that primary oral societies make little use of abstraction.
In the total absence of any writing, there is nothing outside the thinker, no text, to enable him or her to produce the same line of thought again or even to verify whether he or she has done so or not.
- Ong  This means that oral societies do not "think" in the same ways that literate societies do. ...an oral culture simply does not deal in such items as geometrical figures, abstract categorization, formally logical reasoning processes, definitions, or even comprehensive descriptions, or articulated self-analysis, all of which derive not simply from thought itself but from text-formed thought. In other words, oral and literate societies operate by means of different logics. Writing gives us a different way of looking at the world -- indeed, a different reality.  To say writing is artificial is not to condemn it but to praise it. Like other artificial creations and indeed more than any other, it is utterly invaluable and indeed essential for the realization of fuller, interior, human potentials. Technologies are not mere exterior aids but also interior transformations of consciousness, and never more than when they affect the word. Such transformations can be uplifting. Writing heightens consciousness. Alienation from a natural milieu can be good for us and indeed is in many ways essential for full human life. To live and to understand fully, we need not only proximity but also distance. This writing provides for consciousness as nothing else does.
EISENSTEIN: THE DEVELOPMENT OF PRINT MEDIA AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN EUROPEThe sweeping arguments of Innis, McLuhan and Ong are thought provoking, but they lack the thorough accumulation of facts that would prove their case. Historian Elizabeth Eisenstein's detailed study of the impact of print technology in the day-to-day lives of Europeans of the time makes it clear that the new technology did bring great social change. Eisenstein credits McLuhan with raising her interest in the subject.
...McLuhan raised a number of questions abut the actual effects of the advent of printing. They would have to be answered before other matters could be explored. What were some of the most important consequences of the shift from script to print? Anticipating a strenuous effort to master a large literature, I began to investigate what had been written on this obviously important subject. To my surprise, I did not find even a small literature available for consultation. No one had yet attempted to survey the consequences of the fifteenth-century communications shift. Eisenstein's research deals with the impact of the newly developing medium of print on the societies of Western Europe at the close of the Medieval period. She begins with an investigation of the establishment of printing presses in the Rhineland area of Germany in the 1460s, traces the rapid expansion of presses throughout Western Europe and the changes that this brought to the scribal culture of the time, and then identifies a number of social transformations that followed the advent of printing. To set the scene, recall that it was in 1431 that Joan of Arc was burned at the stake, and in 1453 that the Turks captured Constantinople, which they then named Istanbul, thus ending the reign of the Eastern Roman Empire. Columbus had not yet sailed, and the Spanish Inquisition was not yet under way. This period of time, which we mark as the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Renaissance, was to give birth to tremendous social change. Eisenstein's work shows that the development of print was an important factor in shaping that change. This section summarizes some of her conclusions. ALTERED RELIGIOUS PRACTICEEisenstein notes that the wide distribution of Martin Luther's works by his followers came as a surprise to Luther himself. In fact the rapid spread of his words seems to have surprised everyone -- it is regarded as the first mass media campaign in history.
Although the anti-Turkish crusade was thus the "first religious movement" to make use of print, Protestantism surely was the first fully to exploit its potential as a mass medium. It was also the first movement of any kind, religious or secular, to use the new presses for overt propaganda and agitation against an established institution. By pamphleteering directed at arousing popular support and aimed at readers who were unversed in Latin, the reformers unwittingly pioneered as revolutionaries and rabble rousers.
-Eienstein  Although the wars that followed were perhaps the most dramatic evidence of the Protestants' successful propaganda campaign, many other religious changes were initiated by the presence of print. Bibles, which previously had been available only to those trained in Latin, were translated into local languages and reproduced at will. In Europe the different Christian churches reacted differently to this -- the Protestants by accepting the notion the Bible should be read by individuals in their own languages, and the Roman Catholics by declaring that only the one, official, Latin version could be accepted as true. This situation led inevitably to other changes in the rituals and routines of Christian worship, eventually bringing about major changes in religious practiceMADE POSSIBLE AND PROMOTED UNIVERSAL LITERACYIn the process of translating Bibles, the printers also established standards for the languages in which they worked. Prior to the invention of print, there were many versions of spoken "German," for example. But as printers turned the spoken words into a written paradigm, translated Latin works into this paradigm, and distributed the new works, the paradigm became widely accepted as the one and only German dictionary. Different varieties of spoken German were accepted as dialects, but there was only one written version. Standard versions of written French, Spanish, Italian, and English soon appeared by similar means.
The push to make the written word available to people in their own languages impacted first on the most highly educated members of the society.
It was not only the craftsman outside universities who profited from the new opportunities to teach himself. Of equal importance was the chance extended to bright undergraduates to reach beyond their teachers' grasp. Gifted students no longer needed to sit at the feet of a given master in order to learn a language or academic skill. Instead, they could swiftly achieve master on their own....
- Eienstein 34 As reading became more important, more people learned to read. Eventually, this gave rise to the belief that the skill of reading is essential to the social health of the nation. The need to teach everyone how to read is one of the forces that produced generalized public education for all citizens. SUPPORTED DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENCE, INVENTION, INDUSTRY AND EXPLORATIONIn oral societies only what has been remembered can be known.
Who could ascertain precisely what was known - either to prior generations within a given region or to contemporary inhabitants of far-off lands?... Exact determination must have been impossible before printing. Progressive refinement of certain arts and skills could and did occur. But no sophisticated technique could be securely established, permanently recorded, and stored for subsequent retrieval. Before trying to account for an "idea" of progress, we might look more closely at the new dynamic process entailed in a continuous accumulation of fixed records. Permanence introduced a new form of progressive change. The preservation of the old, in brief, was a prerequisite for a tradition of the new.
- Eienstein 86 With no way of keeping extensive records, and no way of transmitting large amounts of information over distances, oral societies do not develop scientific and industrial infrastructures. However, as records began to accumulate in Europe after the invention of print, theorists gained the ability to "compare notes." This was particularly effective with regard to scientific research - a method that depends on constant review of recorded data. Similarly, as craftsmen could now try out new ways of building things and pass the ideas that worked on to others. Thus, scientific investigation and technological development accelerated. The ability to record astrological and geographical observations, in the form of charts and maps, promoted the growth of science and of exploration of new lands. Thus, the development of literacy led to the industrial revolution and the European discovery of distant lands. ENCOURAGED THE GROWTH OF CENTRALIZED GOVERNMENTThe institution of taxes had existed for centuries, usually in the form of a percentage of one's produce set aside for the local ruler. But now, for the first time, there was paperwork. Accountants and bankers and lawyers and bureaucrats - all of these, and the institutions that they represent, came into existence because of the development of print.