Like newspapers and magazines, books provide aesthetic information only. Illustrations are tied in with text to communicate stories or points of views and varying opinions. The content pages within books are very useful to its readers. This feature breaks down the content into separate parts, giving the reader the choice to search for what they want take in. Information is expressed in different ways by different authors dealing with different genres e.g. love stories or horror tales.
The communication of information through the Radio is a large part of the mass media. Live broadcasting of events such as ‘The Party In The Park’ by ‘95.8 Capital FM’ and football match coverage by ‘Jonathon Pierce’ on ‘15.48 Capital Gold’, give the listener a more real life involvement with the information being received. They are able to feel they are at the match or event, because it is being broadcasted at the same time as it happens, in comparison to a written explanation of the event after it has taken place.
Radio presents interviews and debates to its audience too. With interviews, listeners are able to receive information directly from the source, in this case the interviewee, which is more reliable then any written account. This medium source is the communication of information through sound only. It also includes regular news bulletins (serious tone) and music (less serious tone, more leisure linked). Depending on what is being broadcasted, the radio is able to create more of an atmosphere and mood relating to certain information in comparison to a newspaper or magazine article. Listening to information on the radio is easier then reading it, due to the fact the audience don’t have to concentrate fully. They are able to do something else while listing; it is a passive information in-take method.
‘Demassification’ steps in when talking about radio in mass media. Although broadcasts are aimed to a mass audience simultaneously, there are now wider ranges of radio stations that have different target audiences, be it by age or music genre categories. E.g. ‘Kiss Fm’ is aimed at the younger London (age range between 15 to 35 years) whilst ‘Classic FM’ is aimed at those mainly-interested in classical music.
Television broadcasting involves all three methods of communicating, visually, through sound and through movement, all combined into one, thus the reason it is the strongest method of mass communication. Also, nearly everyone in the developed world has, or can easily gain access to a television, making the information easily accessible. Viewers again can be passively informed through a T.V.; they can eat and/or drink while watching.
Linking sound, aesthetics and movement, make it very easy for the viewer to understand information being given. Human’s find it is easier to remember pictures and sounds in comparison to words only. Also, certain things on T.V influence other mediums e.g. books written on the soap ‘East Enders’ and radio interviews with film stars.
Advertisements are a very reliable way of communication. They are designed to give enough information for the viewer to feel they need the product rather then want it. On T.V., adverts have different slots in order to reach their desired potential buyer. Television has different audience’s, e.g. the children and adults, the sports viewer and the outgoer, and ads have been set up to communicate the most relevant information to each audience. For example, on Saturday morning’s adverts selling toys are broadcasted, because children are not at school and are up for the cartoon slots in the morning. Beer adverts are constantly found on the football ground, whether it be the players football strip or on watching ‘the Carling Premiership’ on their T.V.
Through advertisements, people are urged to go and see the latest movie either in the cinema or on video. These two mediums are features of the mass media. The use of cinema effects such as ‘surround sound’ and ‘wind machines’ (within cinemas) are able to create a more realistic feel when watching a movie. Special effects are used constantly in films to more realistically represent what is happening in the scene. The story lines of the film played through actors and ordered by the director communicate information to the audience constantly. Visual effects including settings and action e.g. ‘The Matrix’ using super abilities of certain key characters to inforce the idea of “everything is not what it seems”, help us understand what is being viewed.
Television, film and videos in particular have been popular mediums within the mass media, but technology is rapidly excelling, and each medium has developed its own way of passing information to its audience’s. Even magazines nowadays are targeted to a specific group e.g. ‘FHM’ is for men only, and ‘Just Seventeen’ is only for teenage adolescent girls.
Television companies now have introduced to us ‘Cable’, ‘Satellite’ and ‘Digital’ T.V. These are all types of ‘New Media’.
"Many writers would argue that the media help create an ideological climate which disguises the true character of society and disadvantages some social groups against others". This quote taken from ‘The Sociology of Mass Media’ by David Glover was a view taken before demassification. Now with new media, communication with audience’s is a two way process.
The ‘Shannon and Weaver’ model of communication saw communication as a linear process - their model is an example of what ‘David Chandler’ calls ‘transmissive’. Their model has five elements, the information source, the transmitter, the channel, the receiver and the destination. David Chandler (The Transmission Model of Communication) suggested a number of limitations to this. One being that, "the transmission model fixes and separates the role of ‘sender’ and ‘receiver’. But communication between two people involves simultaneous sending’ and ‘receiving…’”. This idea is taken into consideration when dealing with ‘new media’. Mass media seemed to be very linear in passing information on to its viewers, but the new era of ‘new media’ involving interactivity is slowly taking over.
New media is able to communicate information and other messages to its audience in a more ‘personal’ way, as the audience is able to get involved themselves.
The ‘World Wide Web’ (WWW) is the most advanced and comprehensive form of media in today’s society. It contains masses of information covering everything possible. The Internet uses colour to catch people’s attention while browsing, sound to make things more interesting and also movement to finalise its full presentation of information. Different layouts of websites relate to various audiences such as children. The Internet is able to provide its audience the information they want whenever they want to view it.
‘Computer Mediated Communication’ (CMC) has two modes, the first being the ‘Asynchronous Modes’ e.g. e-mail, newsgroups, bulletin boards, and the second being ‘Synchronous Modes’ e.g. ‘Chatting’. Both these modes communicate using user interactivity. The user is able to access information when he or she wants to, plus info like news is constantly updated.
The Internet is constantly being used as an advertising medium, due to the fact that ‘interaction’ is said to be the key to success. ‘Banner Adverts’ (small ads stuck over web pages) contain ‘hyper links’ which allow us to flow to more relevant information within the banner by the touch of a button. With online marketing, business’s can see which banner ad is attracting the most customers, thus improve it. This constant interaction with customer and advertiser improves services. Even though the Internet only reaches 25% of ad viewers (taken from ‘Internet as an Advertising Medium’, video), once ‘Broadband Technology’ is finally available to everyone, there will be no limit to advertising.
‘Video Conferencing’ is an advanced feature of new media. People are able to communicate simultaneously to each other, without having to be in the same room. ‘Web cams’ are used to play the live images of those communicating. Information is passed clearly and concisely with no time or effort wastage.
From the old mass medium of television when T.V was dedicated to sending out information in bulk, ‘Tomorrows T.V’ is based on interactivity to meet its audience specific needs. ‘Tele TV’ in the-US were the first company to launch interactive TV. They wanted to build a marketing database to obtain user feedback for the improvement of business. Interactive TV works by the user at home having a digital remote. These send information to a large server at the company. Programmes/films (information) are stored on ‘disks’ on a larger machine, which allows us to jump from programme to programme when we want. The ‘Set Top Box’ above the TV then decodes the received signal and turns it into the chosen programme.
These are the main way’s in which different media communicate information and other messages to their audiences. Both ‘mass’ and ‘new’ media have their own characteristics.
Mass Media communication deals with large audiences, with the idea that media are public, open, unrestricted and easy to gain access to i.e. newspaper, radio etc. The audience are thought to be ‘Heterogeneous’ with no limitations, as one message goes out to everyone at the same time. The audience has an impersonal communication relationship with mass media. The mass audience is a uniquely modern collectively.
‘New media’ is based around ‘interactivity’ (Cultural Implications of ICT). Users get ‘involved’ and influence processes. This is an example of an asynchronous mode, as the user is able to obtain information when desired. Demassification allows personalised options to become available. The new ‘digital’ age allows the manipulation of things to become easier, while multimedia integrates the various media forms.
