Mass Communication
What is communication?
• In its simplest form communication is the transmission of a
message from a source to a receiver.
• Unlike mere message sending, communication requires the
response of others. Therefore, there must be a sharing (or
correspondence) of meaning for communication to take place.
Communication
• According to political scientist Harold Lasswell (1948), a
convenient way to describe communication is to answer these
questions:
Encoding and Decoding
• A message is first encoded, that is, transformed into an
understandable sign and symbol system.
• Speaking is encoding, as are writing, printing, and filming a
television programme.
• Once received, the message is decoded; that is, the signs and
symbols are interpreted.
• Decoding occurs through listening, reading or watching that
television show.
Osgood & Schramm’s circular model of communication (1954)
Message Sender
Medium
Message receiver
Person who understands
(analyses, perceives)
• According to communication researchers, interpersonal
communication- communication between two or a few people-
shows that there is no clearly identifiable source or receiver.
• Rather, because communication is an ongoing and reciprocal
process, all the participants are working to create meaning by
encoding and decoding messages.
• There is, therefore, no source, no receiver and no feedback.
• The reason is that, as communication is happening, both
interpreters are simultaneously source and receiver. There is no
feedback because all messages are presumed to be in
reciprocation of other messages.
• Even when your friend starts a conversation with you, for
example, it can be argued that it was your look of interest and
willingness that communicated to her that she should speak. In
this example, it is improper to label either you or your friend as
the source- who really initiated this chat? – and therefore, it is
impossible to identify who is providing feedback to whom.
Communication is the process of sending and
receiving a message with another person through a
medium/channel.
Communication is a reciprocal and ongoing
process with all involved parties more or less
engaged in creating shared meaning.
• Missing from this representation is noise- anything that
interferes with successful communication.
• Noise is more than screeching or loud music when you are
trying to read. Biases that lead to incorrect decoding, for
example, are noise.
Impediments to Communication
Three different types of noise:
1. Semantic; 2. Mechanical; 3.Environmental
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1. Semantic Noise: Different people
have different meanings for different
words and phrases or when the
arrangement of words confuse the
meaning;
2. Mechanical Noise: Problem with a
machine that is being used to assist
communication; For example, a
snowy TV set.
3. Environmental Noise: Sources of
noise are external to the
communication process; For
instance, the noise at a restaurant.
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Types of Communication Settings
1. Intrapersonal Communication,
2. Interpersonal Communication,
3. Group Communication,
4. Mass Communication
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Medium
• Encoded messages are carried by a medium, that is, the means
of sending information. Sound waves are the medium that
carries our voice to friends across the table; the telephone is the
medium that carries our voice to friends cross town.
• When the medium is a technology that carries messages to a
large number of people- as newspapers carry the printed words
and radio conveys the sound of music and news- we call it a
mass medium (the plural of medium is media.
Mass Media
• The mass media we use regularly include radio, television,
books, magazines, newspapers, movies, sound recordings and
computer networks.
• Other related and supporting industries also serve them and us-
advertising and public relations, for example.
• We use the words media and mass media interchangeably to
refer to the communication industries themselves.
What is mass communication?
• Mass communication is the process of creating shared meaning
between the mass media and their audiences.
• Mass communication differs from other forms of
communication.
• For example, when two or a few people communicate face-to-
face, the participants can immediately and clearly recognise the
feedback residing in the reciprocal messages (your boring
teacher can see and hear the students’ disenchantment as they
listen to the lecture). Things are not nearly as simple in mass
communication.
Delayed Inferential feedback
• In mass communication, feedback is represented by a dotted
line labeled delayed inferential feedback.
• This feedback is indirect rather than direct. Television
executives, for example, must wait a day, at the very minimum,
and sometimes a week or a month, to discover the ratings for
new programmes.
• Even then, the ratings only measure how many sets are tuned in,
not whether people liked or disliked the programmes. As a result,
these executives can only infer what they must do to improve
programming; hence the term inferential feedback.
Difference between interpersonal and
mass communication
• The differences between the individual elements of
interpersonal and mass communication change the very nature
of communication process.
• For example, the immediacy and directness of feedback in
interpersonal communication free communicators to gamble, to
experiment with different approaches. Their knowledge of one
another enables them to tailor their messages as narrowly as
they wish.
• As a result, interpersonal communication is often personally
relevant and possibly even adventurous and challenging.
Difference between interpersonal and
mass communication
• In contrast, the distance between participants in the mass
communication process, imposed by the technology, creates a
sort of communication conservatism.
• Feedback comes too late to enable corrections or alterations in
communication that fails.
• Mass communication tends to be more constrained, less free.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/RoiK67obnnU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-J7QZu0W40
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQooMNIQbn0&t=148s
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