Definition- Mass Media

 

 

 MASS MEDIA

 

Mass Media is basically defined today as means and tools of communication that enable an entity to reach out to a large number of masses. We now take a look at the evolution of the word.

 

Etymology of the word- Media

The term media, is the plural of the word medium in Latin. It basically meant “middle ground or intermediate”. Its usage as a word likely derives from the term ‘mass media’ which was a technical term used in the advertising industry from the 1920s on.” (Macmillan Dictionary, 2018).

The Online Etymology Dictionary  states that the term ‘medium’ a noun, can be traced to 1580s, also meant “that which holds middle ground or territory”, in other words “a middle ground, quality or degree”. It was derived from the Latin “’medium’ ‘the middle’, ‘midst’, ‘centre’; ‘interval’," noun use of neuter of adjective ‘medius’ which meant- ‘in the middle’, ‘between’; ‘from the middle’. Towards c.1590 it was related to address “any intervening substance through which a force or a quality is conveyed”. Gradually, by c.1600 it began being related to an agency or a channel of communication. The Online Etymology Dictionary also highlights that the later meaning sprang the sense of a “print publication” towards 1795, which in the long run began being associated with media and its tools. (Online Etymology Dictionary)

The term according to some other scholars is also traced to the late 19^th century to mean a middle sheath or layer as a shortening synonym for modern Latin tunica (or membrana) media. While the word ‘Media’ was also an ancient place, that was conquered by Cyrus the Great of Persia, for the purpose of our studies, the prior meaning is far more applicable. (Oxford Lexico)

The word ‘media’ is a Latin plural of the word ‘medium’. (Oxford Lexico). H.L. Mencken states that the term ‘Media’ was perhaps extracted and used as early as 1923 by those in the advertising field, however, the modern day application was primarily contributed by Communications theorist, Marshall McLuhan. (John Robert, 1994, Online Etymology Dictionary ). 

The term today refers to the varied communication channels- Tools, Techniques, Industry and Institutions including television, radio, and newspapers, which convey information and other forms of symbolic communication rapidly and simultaneously to large, geographically remote and socially distinct audiences.’

 

Definition of ‘Mass’ in the word Mass Media

 

The word ‘Mass’ in this context of Mass Communication studies would mean a large number of people who are heterogenous, assorted and anonymous in nature.

‘Large’ here would mean a relatively big audience or people who are many in number. However, it does not include everyone. People have their own choices in the consumption of Mass mediated messages.

‘Assorted’ here would mean a varied lot. Mass Media Channels have a huge audience but they are often assorted and spread out. They need not always be accumulated in the same place. The audience for a particular Media channel can differ not just from place to place but even in the precincts of a house. For instance, the children in the house may only prefer to watch cartoons on a particular channel, however, the parents may want to watch news, sports or any other tele-serial. The audience is scattered. Children in different homes from all across India may be watching a particular cartoon. Due to satellite Technology, this serial could even have an audience across countries. They may or may not be from a particular geographical context. They are assorted and from different places. However, for a Mass Media channel like a Community Radio, the audience is normally a particular community of people to whom the channel caters.

 ‘Heterogeneous’ here would mean that the audience includes different types of people. A Mass Media channel may have viewers from rich or poor backgrounds, educated or uneducated based on the content, it could be youth or adults, bureaucrats or ordinary middle- class family members.

‘Anonymous’ would mean that the audience is nameless and unspecified.  While analysis can predict the number of hits a channel gets or the popularity a particular serial or book garners, once cannot identify the specific characteristic of every individual audience member. You may identify the place in which your audience exists but you will not be able to identify the person by his or her name. The Audience is Anonymous.

 

Definition of Mass Media

 

Mass Media in simple terms can be defined as any means of communication that are used to reach out to a large mass of people.

Mass Media therefore includes any tools, means, techniques or institutions like a Printed press, Newspaper, Book, Magazine, Radio, Telephone, Television, Computer, Internet, Smartphone, Digital technology of varied kinds, etc, that can be used to communicate to a large group of people. The messages can vary. The message could be in a printed, Audio-Visual or a Digital format. It could contain words, songs, movies, comedy, inspirational thoughts, news, education, etc,.

 

 

Colombo, John Robert (1994). Colombo's All-Time Great Canadian Quotations. Stoddart Publishing. p. 176. ISBN 0-7737-5639-6.

Media, Macmillan Dictionary Blog, https://www.macmillandictionaryblog.com/media

Medium, Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com/word/medium?ref=etymonline_crossreference#etymonline_v_12522

Media, Oxford Lexico, https://www.lexico.com/definition/media

 

Mass Culture

 

Mass Culture was another term that was an outcome of the industrial Revolution. During this era, newspapers, Radio and gradually the Television began to have a widespread impact on people and their life styles. While Culture encompasses the values, attitudes, practices and traditions one endears to during one’s upbringing as member of a particular Society, Mass Culture was considered to be a cultural nuance that developed due to the influence of Mass Media, which influenced human attitudes, their behavioural patterns and their consumption habits. Mass Media was thus criticised as a tool of the Corporates that had “affected individuals and communities from the health to leisure, from the consumption to religion and family by accelerating a social change in an unpredictable manner” (Köroğlu M and Köroğlu C, 2018).

Mambrol (2020) highlights that scholars supporting the traditional cultural practices believed that an artistic work was “distinctive in the subtlety, complexity and adequacy of its formal expression of content”. These artistic works required an experience, a qualification and skills which could not be just attained by Masses at large. Basically these traditional Cultural elements were considered to be the outcome of an educated, qualified, aristocratic and noble minority and not for mere consumption of ordinary people. Mass Culture was therefore considered as superficial and an outcome of Capitalist Corporations “to maximize their profits by selling to the lowest common denominator”. Thus, in the words of Mambrol (2020), “mass culture was held to be inauthentic because it is not produced by the people, manipulative because its primary purpose is to be purchased and unsatisfying because it requires little work to consume and thus fails to enrich its consumers”.

Sociologists like Adorno, Horkheimer and others of the Frankfurt School with their Marxist endearing, highlighted how this commercialisation was basically a capitalist ideology that only perpetrated the capitalist control over the masses through commodification and a standardisation (Oxford Reference).  

However, over the period of years, the term has been re-defined at various junctures, leading to a vast debate on this topic. For the purpose of this study, we look at the definitions provided by various scholars over the period of time to define Mass Culture- 

 

Definitions 

 

Nazll Rengim Sine (2020): “Mass culture emerged in the years following the industrial revolution. The concept of mass culture defines all the power, behaviours, mythos, and phenomena which are difficult to resist and which are produced by industrial techniques and spread to large masses. Mass culture products are standard cultural products produced and transmitted by mass media only for the mass market.”

Marmura Stephen (2013): “Generally refers to media-driven cultural practices within modern “mass societies” which arose in tandem with techniques of mass production and commercial advertising. Culture is understood to be “manufactured” according to market imperatives rather than arising spontaneously from within the localized community.”

Jochen Hung (2020): “Mass culture is understood as popular commercialized cultures. One of the most important characteristics of Weimar-era mass cultures was the central role of the modern mass media in their dissemination: the 1920s saw the development of a tightly integrated media ensemble comprising sound film, radio, popular recorded music, the mass press, and book clubs, which remained stable until the proliferation of television in the 1960s. Many observers interpreted this as the growth of a homogeneous ‘mass culture’, produced on an industrial scale and sold like a common commodity, evoking fears of cultural erosion and mind control.”

Nasrullah Mambrol (2018): “Mass culture is a pejorative term developed by both conservative literary critics and Marxist theorists from the 1930s onwards to suggest the inferiority of commodity-based capitalist culture as being inauthentic, manipulative and unsatisfying. Further, both the authentic culture of the people and the minority culture of the educated elite are said to have been lost to the standardization processes of industrialized ‘mass culture’.”

Oxford Reference: Mass Culture consists of “Cultural products that are both mass-produced and for mass audiences. Examples include mass-media entertainments—films, television programmes, popular books, newspapers, magazines, popular music, leisure goods, household items, clothing, and mechanically-reproduced art. In the affirmative sense, synonymous with popular culture (the preferred term in cultural studies and where the focus is on uses rather than production), although some theorists distinguish it from traditional folk culture because it is oriented toward profit and is organized according to the laws governing commodity exchange.” 

 

 

References 

 

Jochen Hung, Mass Culture, The Oxford Handbook of the Weimar Republic, Edited by Nadine Rossol and Benjamin Ziemann, Online Publication Date: Nov 2020, DOI:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198845775.013.25

Köroğlu, Muhammet Ali and Cemile Zehra Köroğlu, 2018, Information Technologies and Social Change,  Encyclopedia of Information Science and Technology, Fourth Edition, edited by Mehdi Khosrow-Pour, D.B.A., IGI Global, pp. 4715-4722. http://doi:10.4018/978-1-5225-2255-3.ch409

Marmura Stephen, 2013, The Mediation of Identity: Key Issues in Historic Perspective. In R. Luppicini (Eds.), Handbook of Research on Technoself: Identity in a Technological Society (pp. 137-156). IGI Global. http://doi:10.4018/978-1-4666-2211-1.ch008

Mass Culture. Oxford Reference. Retrieved 21 Jun. 2021, from https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100138730.

Nasrullah Mambrol, August 18, 2018, Mass Culture, Literary Theory and Criticism, https://literariness.org/2018/08/18/mass-culture/

Nazll Rengim Sine, 2020, A Rebellion Against the Metallization of the Female Body: “Dove Beyond Figures”. In G. Sarı (Eds.), Gender and Diversity Representation in Mass Media (pp. 121-139). IGI Global. http://doi:10.4018/978-1-7998-0128-3.ch007