SOCIOLOGICAL AND CULTURAL ASPECTS OF MEDIA AND COMMUNICATIONS

Book excerpt: Mass media play a significant role in shaping public perceptions on a variety of important issues, both through the information that is dispensed through them and through the interpretations they place upon this information. They also play a large role in shaping modern culture, by selecting and portraying a particular set of beliefs, values, and traditions (an entire way of life), as reality. That is, by portraying a certain interpretation of reality, they shape reality to be more in line with that interpretation. Mass communication is “the process by which a person, group of people or large organization creates a message and transmits it through some type of medium to a large, anonymous, heterogeneous audience.” Mass communication is regularly associated with media influence or media effects, and media studies. Mass communication is a branch of social science that falls under the larger umbrella of communication studies or communication. With the rise of mass society and the rapid growth of the mass media starting in the nineteenth century, the public, media critics, and scholars have raised questions about the effects various media might have on society and individuals. These effects were viewed initially as being strong, direct, and relatively uniform on the population as a whole. More recently, research has expanded to move beyond looking just at the effects that media and media content have on individuals and society to examinations of how living in a world with all-pervasive media changes the nature of our interactions and culture. It is hoped that the book will serve the purpose of students and scholars of the subject and can be useful to them in allied fields.