Mass Communication: a Critical Approach

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Chapter One Mass Communication: A Critical Approach In today’s fragmented marketplace (where we now have more and more media options), newspapers and TV news have lost a lot of their audiences to smartphones, social networks, and the Internet. This means that the media must target smaller groups with shared interests such as conservatives, liberals, sports fanatics, history buffs, of shopaholics—to find an audience—and the advertisers and revenue that come with them. However, as Jon Stewart said, “The media is like our immune system. If it overreacts to everything, we actually get sicker…or eczema.” Media is a serious force today. At its best, in all its various forms, from mainstream newspapers and radio talk shows to blogs, the media try to help us understand the events that affect us. But, at its worst, the media’s appetite for telling and selling stories leads them not only to document tragedy but also to misrepresent of exploit it. The way to understand the impact of the media on our lives is to explore the cultural context in which the media operate. Culture is the symbols I expression that individuals, groups and societies use to make sense of daily life and to articulate their values, or a process that delivers the values of a society through products of other meaning –marking forms. Mass communication is the process of designing and delivering cultural messages and stories to diverse audiences through media channels as old as the book and as new as the Internet. Mass media is the cultural industries—the channels of communication—that produce and distribute songs, novels, news, movies, online computer services and other cultural products to a large number of people. Those all connect to our lives, and media is everywhere. If we can learn to examine and critique the powerful dynamics of the media, we will be better able to monitor the rapid changes

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