Mass media
Mass media are those media reaching large numbers of the public via radio, television, movies, magazines, newspapers and the World Wide Web. The term was coined in the 1920s with the advent of nationwide radio networks, mass-circulation newspapers and magazines.
Mass media reach a mass audience. That audience has been viewed by some commentators as forming a mass society with special characteristics, notably atomization or lack of social connections, which render it especially suseptable to the influence of modern mass media techniques such as advertising and propaganda.
During the 20th century, the advent of mass media was driven by technology that allowed the massive duplication of material at a low cost. Physical duplication technologies such as printing, record pressing and film duplication allowed the duplication of books, newspapers and movies at low prices to huge audiences. Television and radio allowed the electronic duplication of content for the first time.
Mass media had the economics of linear replication: a single work could make money proportional to the number of copies sold, and as volumes went up, units costs went down, increasing profit margins further. Vast fortunes were to be made in mass media.
We also need to discuss mass media in different countries. Mass media in India is discussed in a separate section below.
The Internet and mass media
During the last decade of the 20th century, the advent of the World Wide Web marked the first era in which any individual could have a means of exposure on the scale of mass media. For the first time, anyone with a web site can address a global audience, although serving high levels of web traffic is still expensive. It is possible that the rise of peer-to-peer technologies may have begun the process of making the cost of bandwidth manageable.
See also
Notable persons
Notable corporations
Other
External links
Media studies
Other
Referenced By
1984 (book) | 1984 (novel) | 2002 Gujarat pogrom | 2002 Gujarat violence | 20th-century | 20th Century | 20th century AD | AINA | AOL-Time Warner | AOL Time-Warner | AOL Time Warner | Anson Chan | Anson Chan Fang On-sang | As of November 2003 | Business | BusinessAndEconomics | Business and economics | Business and industry | Christian Science Monitor | Eastasia | Elizabeth Smart | Fundamental business concepts | George Orwell/1984 | Greece/Government | Hong Kong Audit Bureau of Circulations | In These Times | Islamophobe | Islamophobia | Kenneth E. Hagin | Les Editions de Minuit | Les Éditions de Minuit | Library of Congress Classification/Class P -- Language and Literature/Subclass P -- Philology linguistics | Library of Congress Classification:Class P, subclass P -- Philology linguistics | List of business topics | List of who owns what | Media in Canada | Media portrayal of homosexuality | Media studies | Medium | Michael Barrymore | Mordechai Vanunu | Newspaper | Newspapers | Nineteen Eighty-Four | Nineteen Eighty-Four (novel) | Nixon's Enemies List | Norrington Table | November 2003 | October 2003 | Paddy Roy Bates | Politics of Greece | Princes of Sealand | Principality of Sealand | Roughs Tower | Rudy Vallee | SARS and accusations of racial discrimination | Sealand | September 2003 | Ted Kaczynski | Telescreen | Teton Dam | The Times of India | Theodore Kaczynski | Time-Warner | Time Warner | Time Warner Inc. | Times of India | Tony Martin (farmer) | Twentieth-century | Twentieth Century | UNABOM | Unabomber | Unabomer | Unibomber | Warner Communications | Year in Review | Year in Review 20th Century
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