Lecture Notes: Mass Media and Society

“Mass media is the modern systems of communications and distribution supplied by small groups of cultural producers, but directed towards a large number of consumers.

The ‘Late age of print’ began around 1450 and originated from the theorist Marshall McLuhan with Gutenberg’s innovation of the printing press, which was used to mass-produce the bible.

Companies allowing the reader to choose what they want to read and how they want to read it have developed the recent invention of the e-book.

Computer media lets us search quickly and easily for anything we choose, including videos, information and photographs.

Hypermedia allows us to search through knowledge. Hypertext allows us to skip through it to find what we want.

There are some criticisms of mass media, which include:

-Superficial, uncritical, trivial

-Viewing figures measure success

-Audience is dispersed

-Audience is disempowered

-Encourages status quo

Advantages of the Mass Media include:

-Encourages empathy

-Power by the few motivated by profit/control

-Bland, Escapist

-Encourages Escapism