1.According to Banerjee Debanjan, mass communication “refers to the activities of the media as a whole and fails to distinguish among specific media, modes of communication, genres of text or artifact, production or reception situations, or any question of actual communication” (Debanjan, 2010, p. 118). The process of mass communication is closely related to the media contexts.
In my opinion, there are such 7 trends that characterize modern mass media: centralization, convergence, interpersonalization, specialization, globalization, pathogenic texts, Internet based products. According to Avaya’s report, there are more 7 trends for 2013 year:
- Simplified complexity drives the agenda.
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- Video changes business and customer expectations.
- Real-time analytics help fine-tune customer experience.
- Businesses face the private-or-public cloud decision.
- Communications support goes proactive.
- Managed services hit an inflection point.
- Mobile muscles in. (Avaya, 2013)
2.Modern mass communication theory is related to many approaches, the major of which are:
- Functional;
- Critical;
- Cultural.
All of these approaches are closely related to the functions of modern mass-media. The first approach from all the listed above is about the function of online and offline media sources and their operating as so called “the fourth power” in the society. It means that modern mass media in democratic countries are a very important power in the process of social and cultural development. Every TV channel or newspaper by providing their audience with information develops the public opinion in their own unique way.
Critical approach is related to the functioning of mass-media as a very important body providing criticism related to the government, public figures and political forces of the society.
Cultural function of mass-media is related to the information about cultural events, historical dates, famous leaders of the past, and many more facts of the cultural heritage.
According to these approaches, modern mass media can be classified as social-political, cultural and neutral that presents the information in general, or related to some specific subject. Topics and themes matter a lot for every mass-media.
3. Modern media technology matters much for modern social and cultural issues and process of the present time. Nowadays it is very important to “communicate effectively” (Mass Communication Theory, 2013), especially in our digital age, when the process of getting information became very simplified. Now we can easily get any kind of data, simply in a way of putting some keywords in Google, Yahoo, or Bing search engines field. It makes the searching process much easier, just like simplifying the process of communicating between people, including the interpersonal communication.
In the opinion of some experts, just like Peter Lindsay, when talking about children, their “obsession with txt and facebook” is “destroying their ability to express themselves without emoticons” (Lindsay, 2013). In this statement, the negative function of modern mass-media, including social networks and blogging platforms, is expressed. But there are many positive aspects in Internet technology, when it is applied to our everyday life.
Such forms of communication as Internet, influenced much on the old and out-to-date forms of communication. For example, nowadays not many people all around the world write simple paper letters. Instead, they are just writing txt messages in Skype, Yahoo Messenger, Google Talk, or MSN. People use chats or blogging platforms to communicate and express their opinion about some events.
4. Advertising is a very important part of mass communication. There are even special ads channels on TV. On the Internet there are even more ads, like from Google Adsense partners, and even more advertising campaigns. Recently, it has become very popular to promote some products or services in social networks, as many potential buyers are using
Facebook or Twitter, so some ads can become very popular among them.
Before organizing advertising campaign, it is necessary to make the research of the market and mass-media. The purpose of the advertising research is to identify, which mass-medias fit better for promoting some products or services.
In the process of advertising research, it is necessary to consider every detail, including the type of audience, the owners of the given mass-media, the general theme, format, publisher, and many more aspects, which should be extremely important for a researcher. In this case only, it is possible to identify the factors for understanding the basic concepts of the providing a good advertising research. So, it is better to give this task to the highly-educated professionals, who are able to do their best for this issue.
References
Communicating Effectively in a Digital Age. (2013). Mass Communication Theory. Retrieved from <http://masscommtheory.com/>. Viewed on 12 July, 2013.
Debanjan, B. (2010). Mass Communication: Trends, Traits and Theories. Journal Media and Communication Studies, Vol. 2(5), 118-121.
Lindsay, P. (2013). Is Modern Communication Going to Produce a Generation That Doesn’t Understand Body Language or Verbal Expression? TED. Retrieved from <http://www.ted.com/conversations/12988/is_modern_communication_going.html>. Viewed on 12 July, 2013.
Seven communications trends for 2013. (2013). Avaya. Retrieved from <http://www.avaya.com/usa/resource/assets/whitepapers/2013_communications_trends.pdf >Viewed on 12 July, 2013.
