Copyright 1998, 1999, 2000 by Rich Cameron
  www.rcameron.com/journalism/100/online/1-lect-masscomm.html

In the last lecture, Communication, we learned about a simple communication model. We can take that same model to see the differences between simple communication and mass communication. There are still senders and receivers, but the makeup of those components in the communication process changes.

For instance, in mass communication rarely is there just one sender. The message that is to be sent is composed by multiple senders. In a newspaper article, for instance, you have the writer/reporter, the editor, the page designer, the composing room engineer, the press operator, etc. Add to that the publisher and the newspaper's lawyers, who might have a say in the message. Each of these representatives has a hand in formulating the message.

Likewise, there is seldom just one receiver. Even in simple communication there sometimes can multiple receivers. But it is more common in mass communication. It is, after all mass communication. And the receivers might be even more detached from the communication process than in simple communication. Take a television show, for instance. The television might be turned on, but are the viewers paying attention? What if the viewer is the family fish?

The message is still sent along some channel, but in mass communication the message is always sent along some mediated channel. In other words, in simple communication you almost always send the message directly from the sender to the receiver. But in mass communications the message is conveyed through some mechanical process: a television transmitter, a printing press, etc.

Feedback is also important to the mass communication model, though the feedback is almost always delayed. For example, an advertiser may send a message via an ad in a magazine. The advertiser will have to wait to see if the ad produced results, a process that could take months. The ad may contain a coupon that helps the advertiser track the effectiveness of the communication to motivate the consumer. But the coupon may be good for a couple of months. Other forms of feedback might come in angry phone calls to the television station, letters to the editor, decreased or increased subscriptions, etc. But the most well known feedback in the media is through surveys, polls and ratings. We'll talk about ratings --which are really the result of polls and surveys-- later in the semester.

And noise is present in mass communication as well. Channel noise may be the static on a radio station or the "snow" on a poorly tuned television channel. A power outage could result in channel noise that prevents the communication from taking place. All forms of semantic noise can take place, too, so those putting together messages tend to keep them simple and easy to understand.

Communication Revolutions

Your textbook talks about three communication resolutions that you should understand, too. Most important is to look at how they relate to mass communication.

The first communication revolution that took place was the development of writing. While those who study history strive to place dates on most important events, it is often difficult to do so. Dating the development of writing is one of those cases. What is important to note about this revolution is that it occurred only about 250 generations ago. What's a generation? Well, for sake of argument, let's call it 20 years. Do the math.

Writing allowed messages to transcend time and distance. You could record your message so that the receiver did not have to be present when you delivered it originally. The message could retrieved at a later time. And as people learned to record messages in places other than caves or the side of a rock or mountain, the messages could transcend distance, too. That is, they could be carried to far away locations and reach larger audiences.

Historians also like to peg the development to one person or group of people. Writing also confounds this process because it developed independently in different parts of the world at roughly the same time, give or take a few generations. Since there was no global communication at the time this is significant. Here are some examples of what I'm talking about:

• The Egyptians settling the Nile Valley found the land to be fertile and good for growing food. But there were also times of the year when floods occurred. You could lose your crops and your life. You needed to know when to harvest your crops and head for high ground. It also helped if you knew when to head back and replant crops. Over the years the elders noticed patterns in the weather and in the stars that helped predict these events. They developed a form of writing to record those patterns.
  
  
• Across the oceans the Mayan Indians of South America appeared to have developed their own form of writing. When the Spaniard conquerors marched in they found a developed civilization --by standards of that day-- complete with libraries of books written on strips of bark that had been sewn together. Much of this stored knowledge was destroyed by the conquering armies.
  
  
• And let's not forget the Chinese, who "invented" many things long before they were "invented" in western culture. The Chinese had gunpowder long before the Europeans, but used it for peaceful means rather than for killing. They invented pasta long before the Italians made it famous. And they developed a pictorial written language on their own.

And these are just some of the examples.

The Second Revolution

The second revolution was printing. Printing existed before Johannes Gutenberg invented his moveable type printing press in the 1450s, but historians, again eager to pinpoint historical events, look to Gutenberg as the pivotal person in printing. His invention, completed in approximately 1455, for the first time made it easy to make multiple copies of documents.

While the moveable type printing press was important, it did not immediately lead to mass communications The first printed newspapers than we know about did not evolve until 150 years later . . . and even the first newspapers were not considered mass communication.

The reason for this is that until about the 1830s reading and writing was not a staple of the masses. Literacy, the ability to read and write, results in knowledge. And knowledge results in power. Throughout history, before the 1800s, reading and writing was reserved for the elite. The formation of a public school system in American in the early 1800s, was an example of a reversal of this trend. Prior to that, only the rich were afforded an education on a regular basis. American slavery is an example of how literacy can result in power. The slave owners were vastly outnumbered by the slaves. But the lack of knowledge of the world outside the plantation helped keep the slaves subserviant. In parts of the world today groups of people, especially women, are kept subservient by limiting the knowledge needed to break their ties.

The Reformation is an example of the masses trying to break these bonds. Prior to the Reformation only the Church was allowed to interpret Holy Scriptures. Without printing most people did not have access to Bibles and had to take the Church's word for what it said. When Gutenberg started "mass producing" Bibles, educated folk could read and see for themselves. But even then, few could read.

 

The Third Revolution

The third revolution of communication has been the introduction of computers. Computers change the way we communicate. Evidence the Internet. The illiterates of society before and during the first communication revolution were those who could not write. The illiterates of the second revolution were those who could not read. And the illiterates of the third revolution are those who cannot or will not use computers. Reading and writing and accessing information in "old-fashioned" ways is still important, but more and more if you can't access information online you are left behind in the dust. From online banking, to online purchases, to online music, to online courses, computers are changing our lives.

And the mass media we will be studying this semester recognize the importance of computers, especially in use with the World Wide Web.

 

Reading Assignment

You should be reading Chapter One in your textbook to get more information about communication.

Exercise

Describe the roles of sender, receiver, channel, feedback and noise in mass communication.

Note that when submitting answer start the subject line with:

J100x-L -- YourLastName -- Mass Communication