7.3 Publicity through Mass Media
In the beginning we have to remind the reader that we have to deal here with next four issues: mass media, forms of mass media, professions related to mass media, and the situation in the digital age.
Mass Media:
The mass media are diversified media technologies that are to reach a large audience by mass communication. Broadcast media (also known as electronic media) transmit their information electronically and comprise television, radio, film, movies, CDs, DVDs, and other devices such as cameras and video consoles. Alternatively, print media use a physical object as a mean of sending their information, such as newspaper, magazines, comics, books, newsletters, leaflets, and pamphlets. The organizations that control these technologies, such as television stations or publishing companies, are also known as the mass media. Internet media is able to achieve mass media status in its own right, due to the many mass media services it provides, such as email, websites, blogging, Internet and television. For this reason, many mass media outlets have a presence on the web, by such things as having TV ads that link to website, or having games in their site to entice gamers to visit their website. In this way, they can utilize the easy accessibility that the Internet has, and the outreach that Internet affords, as information can easily be broadcast to many different regions of the world simultaneously and cost-efficiently. Outdoor media is a form of mass media that comprises billboards, signs, placards placed inside and outside of commercial buildings and objects like shops and buses, flying billboards (signs in tow of airplanes), blimps, and skywriting. Public speaking and event organizing can also be considered as forms of mass media.
7.3 Publicity through Mass Media
Issues with definition. In the late 20th Century, mass media could be classified into eight mass media industries: books, newspaper, magazines, recordings, radio, movies, television and the internet. With the explosion of digital communication technology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the question of what forms of media should be classified a "mass media" has become more prominent. For example, it is controversial whether to include cell phones, video games and computer games in the definition. In the 2000s, a classification called the "seven mass media" became popular. In order of introduction, they are:
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Print (books, pamphlets, newspapers, magazines, etc.) from the late 15th century. |
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Recordings (gramophone records, magnetic tapes, cassettes, cartridges, CDs, DVDs) from the late |
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Cinema from about 1900. |
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Radio from about 1910. |
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Television from about 1950. |
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Internet from about 1990. |
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Mobile phones from about 2000. |
Each mass media has its own content types, its own creative artists and technicians, and its own business models. For example, the Internet includes web sites, blogs, podcasts, and various other technologies built on top of the general distribution network. The sixth and seventh media, internet and mobile, are often called...
7.3 Publicity through Mass Media
...collectively as digital media; and the fourth and fifth, radio and TV, as broadcast media. Some argue that video games have developed into a distinct mass form of media.
Forms of Mass Media
Broadcast. The sequencing of content in a broadcast is called a schedule. With all technological endeavors a number of technical terms and slang developed. Television and radio programs are distributed through radio broadcasting over frequency bands that are highly regulated. Cable programs are often broadcast simultaneously with radio and television programs, but have a more limited audience. When broadcasting is done via the Internet the term webcasting is often used.
Film. Film encompasses motion pictures as individual projects, as well as the field in general. Films are produced by recording people and objects with cameras, or by creating them using animation techniques and/or special effects. Film is considered by many to be an important art form; films entertain educate, enlighten, and inspire audience. Any film can become a worldwide attraction, especially with addition of dubbing or subtitles that translate the film message. Films are also artifacts created by specific cultures, which reflect those cultures, and, in turn, affect them.
Video games. A video game is a computer-controlled game where a video display such as a monitor or television is the primary feedback device. The term "computer game also includes games which display only text (and which can therefore theoretically be played on a teletypewriter) or which use other methods, such...
7.3 Publicity through Mass Media
...as sound or vibration, as their primary feedback device, but there are very few new games in these categories.
Audio recording and reproduction. Sound and reproduction is the electrical or mechanical re-creation and/or amplification of sound, often as music. This involves the use of audio equipment such as microphones, recording devices and loudspeakers. From early beginning with the invention of the phonograph using purely mechanical techniques, the field has advanced to the most recent developments have been in digital audio players. Music videos can accommodate all styles of filmmaking, including animation, live action films, documentaries, and non-narrative, abstract film.
Internet. The Internet (also known simply as "the Net" or less precisely "the Web") is a more interactive medium of mass media, and can be briefly described as "a network of networks". Specifically, it is the worldwide, publicity accessible network of interconnected computer networks that transmit data by packet switching using the standers Internet Protocol (IP). It consists of millions of smaller domestic, academic, business, and governmental networks, which together carry various information and services, such as email, online chat, file transfer, and the interlinked web pages and other documents of the World Wide Web.
The advent of the World Wide Web marked the first era in which most individuals could have a means of exposure on a scale comparable to that of mass media. Anyone with a web site has the potential to address a global audience, although serving to high levels of web traffic is still relatively expensive. The invention of the Internet has also allowed breaking news stories to reach around the globe within minutes. This rapid growth...
7.3 Publicity through Mass Media
...of instantaneous, decentralized communication is often deemed likely to change mass media and its relationship to society. The Internet is quickly becoming the center of mass media. Everything is becoming accessible via the internet.
Blogs (web logs). Blogging, too, has become a pervasive form of media. A blog is a website, usually maintained by an individual, with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or interactive media such as images or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse chronological order, with most recent posts shown on the top. Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images and other graphics, and links to other blogs, web pages, and related media. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs.
RSS feeds. RSS is a format syndicating news and the content of news-like sites, including major news sites Wired, news-oriented community sites like Slashdot, and personal blogs. It is a family of Web feed forms used to publish frequently updated content such as blog entries, news headlines, and podcasts. An RSS document (which is called a "feed" or "web feed" or "channel") contain either a summary of content from an associated web site or the full text. RSS makes it possible for people to keep up with web sites in an automated manner that can be piped into special programs of filtered displays.
Podcast. A podcast is a series of digital media files which are distributed over the Internet using syndication fees for playback on portable media played and computers. The term podcast, like broadcast, can refer...
7.3 Publicity through Mass Media
...either to the series of content itself or to the method by which it is syndicated; the latter is also called podcasting. The host or author of a podcast is often called a podcaster.
Mobile. Mobile phones were introduced in Japan in 1979 but became mass media only in 1998 when the first downloadable ringing tones were introduces in Finland. Soon most forms of media content were introduced on mobile phones, and today the total value of media consumed on mobile towers over that of internet content. Similar to the internet, mobile is also an interactive media, but has far wider reach. Like email on the internet, the top application on mobile is also a personal messaging service, but SMS text messaging is used over billions of people.
Practically all internet services and applications exist or have similar cousins on mobile, from search to multiplayer games to virtual worlds to blogs. Mobile has several unique benefits which many mobile pundit claims make mobile a more powerful media than either TV or the internet, starting with being permanently carried and always connected. Mobile has the beat audience accuracy and is the only mass media with a built-in payment channel available to every user without any credit cards. Mobile is often called the seventh Mass Media and either the fourth screen (if counting cinema, TV, and PC screens) or the third screen (counting only TV and PC).
Professions Involving Mass media
Three main professions involving mass media are: journalism, public relations, and publishing. Because the profession which is more related to this topic is public relations, so, we highlighted it.
7.3 Publicity through Mass Media
Public relations are the art and science of managing communication between an organization and its key publics to build, manage and sustain its positive image. Also, public relations work often means finding ways to attract the attention of the press, people in the public relations provide publicity, which creates events and presents information so the press and the public will pay attention. Examples include:
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Corporations use marketing public relations to convey information about the products they manufacture or |
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services they provide to potential customers to support their direct sales efforts. Typically, they support |
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sales in the short and long term, establishing and burnishing the corporation's branding for strong, ongoing |
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Corporations also use public relations as vehicle to reach legislators and other politicians, seeking |
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favorable tax, regulatory, and other treatment, and they may use public relations to portray themselves as |
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enlightened employers, in support of human-resources recruiting programs. |
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Nonprofit organizations, including schools and universities, hospitals, and human and social service |
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agencies, use public relations in support of awareness programs, fund-raising programs, staff recruiting, |
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and to increase patronage of their services. |
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Politicians use public relations to attract votes and raise money, and, when successful at the ballot box, |
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to promote and defend their service in office, with an eye to the next election or, at career's end, to their |
7.3 Publicity through Mass Media
Mass Communication in the Digital Age
Wired. This one word often has been used to describe someone who understands all the latest technologies, knows what's going on. In the 1930s, if you were wired, your house had electricity throughout. You put your radio near an electrical outlet, with the furniture positioned so the family could listen to the programs. In the 1950s, if you were wired, you had an antenna on the roof for your new TV set, which was connected at the wall to an electrical outlet and the antenna. To be wired was to be connected.
In the 1991s, if you were wired, you still needed an electrical outlet at home and at work to be connected to tour computer, and the furniture in your family room still was arranged to accommodate the cable or satellite and perhaps telephone lines for your interactive TV set.
Wireless. In the new world of mass communication, to be connected is to be wireless (often called Wi-Fi, an abbreviation for wireless fidelity). New technologies are emerging that will allow you to use any technology in any location without wires. This means you can move the furniture anywhere in the media room, watch movies on your portable computer, listen to radio by satellite, and download music, books and newspapers to a device you carry in your pocket. You and your mass media are totally mobile.
The new mass media is as easy to use as a telephone, with pictures and sound, offering massive choices of information, entertainment and services whenever and wherever you want them.
7.3 Publicity through Mass Media
The new digital environment is an intricate, webbed network of many different types of communications systems that eventually will connect every home, school, library, and business in the country. Most of the systems in this digital environment are invisible. Electronic signals have replaced wires, freeing people up to stay connected no matter where or when they want to communicate. This global communications system uses broadcast, telephone, satellite, cable and computer technologies to connect everyone in the world to a variety of services. Ideally, the communications system will be accessible and affordable for everyone.