Mass_Media

If you think communication as something that people do through messages, production of messages, sharing of messages and interpretation of them, then mass communication becomes the mass production of messages. In fact in some ways, book was the first mass-produced product when you can produce infinite number of copies of the exact same thing. Suddenly you can create a message and reach vast numbers of people by repeating the message by mass-producing the message to the huge number of diverse hetereogenous crowds. Different type of technologies have been very good at reaching very specific groups . Some of them reaching enormously varied and diverse groups. When you can mass-produce messages you can reach unbelievable number of people. If u think about what it would like to suddenly reach 2 hundred million people, remember that people watch big events like super bowl, landing of moon, inauguration. This is in human history , it is incomprehensible to think about what it would have been like to reach that many people once we take it completely granted. Sending a message between one city and another, could take across the ocean, but with mass communication you can send message from one person or one group to an infinite number of groups, countries all aroudn the world, instantaneously reaching large groups of people. Type of mass communication varies primarily by what sort of technology we are talking about. Some mass communication will bypass time as an obstacle and some will bypass space. İf you think of a book or a magazine, the messages written down will be preserved, it will stay there so you can communicate with large numbers of people over a long period of time. Other types of tech will span vast amounts of distance whether we are talking about a radio broadcast, internet chat or satellite boradcast, can no longer have distance as an obstacle. Some type of mass communication moving to a very specific, specialied groups, say you want ot reach everybody who is interested in baseball or sth large number of people, you communicate just to them. Others will reach hugely diverse audiences where you have people of all ages of all races of all aincome groups, geograhhpic or cultural areas. So mass communciation can be very targeted towards a relativley specific group or he can be spread enourmously divers and hetereogenous group that otherwise would have nothing in common except for the exposure to those messages and therefore it is a question whether you are crossing time or space or both. Different technologies allow rifferent type of mass communication The question of how a media affect us is a vast one. There are thousands and thousands of studies on so many different aspects on how it affects our political knowledge, our tendency to have stereotypes about different groups. There are hundreds and hunsreds studies just on violence. There are many competing theories how the media affect us. But the couple of dominant ones are the belief that media do not necessarily tell us what to think but what to think about. That’s called agenda setting because the idea is that media, they set the aggenda and tell us, oaky this is the topic everybody has to be focused on right now. Another theory is called cultivation, it is not for example that media make people act more violently but will give people images of the world if you watch a lot of Tv, you will see a lot of violence. And one researchers have found the more people watch tv, violent, scary and dangerous they think the world is.If you watgc tv, you will just imitate and act violent yourself. Obviously most people dont do that. But people who wathc a lot of tv over long period of time will come to believe tht the wprld is much scarier and more violent than it really is. That leads to interpersonal mistrust that leads to greater apprehension and that leads to alienation from society adn other people. The effects are subtle and more complicated than often work dependent on other factors than they are often presented in the media and by politicians in public discourse but the asspumption is that just affect you in a very automatic simple way. The internet is very much alive and kicking. The first generation of internet sites gave information but the rise of sites like facebook, amazon the way it has become increasingly interactive. At Web 2.0 it is mostly the user produces the content. Without contributors there wouldnt be any facebook and without people who post information on wikipedia and video clips at youtube, there would be no interaction on these sites.Meanwhile most people have become familiar with web 2.0. Blogging, tagging, socail networking and social bookmarking have paved the way into next step in the development of the web. The step to the intellingt and omnipresent web 3.0. Web 3.0 is not totally different from the web we know now. It is in many respects a contiuation of existing techniques. Think of the so called recommender systems that make a personal approach by a website possible. Amazon has cleverly used this system for a long time now by offering their clients products that other people with the same interest bought before them. And last.fm u can listen online music that caters to your personal wishes by using smart systems these sites are in continous learning process and they anticipate for their users like and dislike. Important for sites like last.fm or amazon is that a song or a book gets extra information added by the user. No sudden change of the internet, it changes gradually. What does change the quickly is the look&feel of the web. Simply speaking the internet is a web full of appliances that communicate with each other by exchaning information. As more and more everyday appliances are connected to the internet. For example mobile phones, washing machines, car, the web is more present but it iwll become less and less invisible. But invisibly present in everyday appliances. Moreover all these appliances start communicating with wach other through the internet. This may lead to useful additional services measured to meet all individual needs. For the time being we are not yet dealing with al knowing computer which comes close to or even surpasses human intelligence. Writing computer programs which any human manner convert data into useful information also known as semantic web appears quite difficult. But the web undoubtly evolves into an environment which is intelligent and will meet our wishes more often more easily and automatically. New services develop because data from various sources can be linked more easily. Morever with the wireless infrastruc ture, these web services are always and everywhere available. Your online agenda becomes your personal assistant whcih all by itself. for instance on the basis of your profile on facebook will check your possibilities for new appointments and even take travelling times into account. Your destination an itinerary to will sorted out by the links between restaurant sides, gps information and from local web services.