UNDERSTANDING MASS COMMUNICATION
TABLE OF CONTENT
1.0 INTRODUCTION 2
2.0 UNDERSTANDING MASS
COMMUNICATION 4
2.1 The Mass 5
2.2 Mass Communication Process 6
2.3 Nature of Mass Communication 6
3.0 UNIQUE ASPECTS OF MASS
COMMUNICATION 8
4.0 THE
ROLE OF GATEKEEPER IN
MH370 NEWS REPORTING 11
5.0 CONCLUSIONS 14
REFERENCES 16
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Mass
communication is the study of how people and entities relay information through
mass media to large segments of the population at the same time. It is usually
understood to relate newspaper, magazine, and book publishing, as well as
radio, television and film, as these mediums are used for disseminating
information, news and advertising. Mass communication differs from the studies
of other forms of communication, such as interpersonal communication or
organizational communication, in that it focuses on a single source
transmitting information to a large group of receivers. The study of mass communication
is chiefly concerned with how the content of mass communication persuades or
otherwise affects the behavior, attitude, opinion, or emotion of the person or
people receiving the information.
The history of
communication stretches from prehistoric forms of art and writing through
modern communication methods such as the Internet. Mass communication began
when humans could transmit messages from a single source to multiple receivers.
Mass communication has moved from theories such as the hypodermic needle model
(or magic bullet theory) through more modern theories such as computer-mediated
communication.
As society and
technology have advanced, the newspaper industry has been forced to advance as
well. Newspaper web sites are now the norm with over 4,000 newspapers playing
host to web sites2 and with each site comes different ways to handle the news.
Many web editions simply reprint the day’s news from the newspaper. Others,
mostly at larger newspapers, have interactive web sites and staffs to fill up some
extra news for online readers. This means that as the news heads to the web,
the Gatekeeper heads there as well.
The basic idea
of gatekeeping has been cogently stated in Shoemaker’s valuable review of the
literature: ‘‘Simply put, gatekeeping is
the process by which the billions of messages that are available in the world
get cut down and transformed into the hundreds of messages that reach a given
person on a given day’’ (1991, 1). Gatekeeping as a theory of
communications began with Lewin’s (1951) work on community dynamics and a
notion of gatekeeping that was laid out in terms of food consumption—the
selection process by which certain foods reach the dinner table, or not. Lewin
saw this as a product of ‘‘communications channels’’ and ‘‘gates,’’ metaphors
well-suited to a theory of news selection in mass media. Media gatekeeping was
then more fully developed in White’s (1950) classic case study of a wire editor
at a small town daily newspaper. White catalogued the news stories provided by
wire services, and the news stories that ended up in the newspaper, and
explored the editor’s reasons for including or excluding certain stories.
Relatively simple in design, this work emphasized the potential agenda-setting
role of wire services, but, moreover, the effect that a single editor’s ideas
about news could have on media content.
Who runs the
gate for an online newspaper when breaking news occurs? Does the Gatekeeper
hold off on running a story online in order to save it for the newspaper or
will the Gatekeeper choose to run the story online first? What factors go into
this decision?
This paper will
examine the concept of Mass Communication and the role of the Gatekeeper when
it comes to running story of breaking news, as an example the downing Malaysian
commercial plane MH370.
2.0 UNDERSTANDING
MASS COMMUNICATION
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."
This implies that the audience of mass communication are mostly made up of
different cultures, behavior and belief systems. 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 of communication
The history of
communication stretches from prehistoric forms of art and writing through
modern communication methods such as the Internet. Mass communication began
when humans could transmit messages from a single source to multiple receivers.
Mass communication has moved from theories such as the hypodermic needle model
(or magic bullet theory) through more modern theories such as computer-mediated
communication.
In the United
States, the study of mass communication is often associated with the practical
applications of journalism (Print media), television and radio broadcasting,
film, public relations, or advertising. With the diversification of media
options, the study of communication has extended to include social media and
new media, which have stronger feedback models than traditional media sources.
While the field of mass communication is continually evolving, the following
four fields are generally considered the major areas of study within mass
communication. They exist in different forms and configurations at different
schools or universities, but are (in some form) practiced at most institutions
that study mass communication.
For better understanding
of the nature of mass communication, we should analyze its
two basic
components: the mass and the communication media.
2.1 The
Mass
The concept “mass’’ in mass communication is
defined as a large, heterogeneous, assorted, anonymous audience.
‘Large’ means we can’t exactly count
the number of the members of audience. It is relatively large but it doesn’t
mean that the audience includes all people.
‘Heterogeneous’ means the audience of
mass media includes all types of people – the rich, the poor, farmers,
bureaucrats, politicians and so on.
‘Assorted’ means the audience of mass
media is not necessarily limited to a particular geographical sector. They may
be scattered everywhere. For example, a newspaper may have a reader in every
nook and corner of the world.
‘Anonymous’ means we can’t specifically
identify a reader of a newspaper of newspaper with his certain characteristics.
Today he may be reader of a particular newspaper. Tomorrow, he may change his
media habit. Anybody at any time may be a member of mass media audience.
The channels of
communication that produce and distribute news, entertainment content, visuals
and other cultural products to a large number of people. Mass media can be
classified in to three major groups on the basis of their physical nature.
They are;
- Print
Media like newspaper, magazines and periodicals, books etc.
- Electronic
like radio, cinema, television, video and audio records
- Digital
Media like CD ROMs, DVDs and the Internet facilities.
2.2 Mass
Communication Process
How does mass
communication work can be well explained in linear model of mass communication?
According to this traditional concept, mass communication is a component system
made up of senders ( the authors, reporters, producers or agencies) who transmit
messages ( the book content, the news reports, texts, visuals, images, sounds
or advertisements) through mass media channels ( books, newspapers, films,
magazines, radio, television or the Internet) to a large group of receivers (
readers, viewers, citizens or consumers) after the filtering of gatekeepers (
editors, producers or media managers) with some chance for feedback ( letters
to editors, phone calls to news reporters, web-site postings or as audience
members of talk shows or television discussions). The effect of this process
may formation of public opinion, acceptance of a particular cultural value,
setting the agenda for the society and the like.
A simple linear
model of mass communication situation can be represented with the
diagram given
below.
Figure 1: Simple linear model of mass
communication
2.3 Nature of Mass
Communication
From the above
model of mass communication, it is easy to identify the following
features of mass
communication.
1)
Mass communication experience is public one. It means
that anybody can be a part of this communication process at any time without
much effort or permission.
2)
It is a mediated communication act. Nature of the media
involved in the process defines the mediation in mass communication. For
example, television can transmit a news instantly as it is a fast medium,
newspaper takes to bring the same news report to the public because of its
limitations. This is how nature of the media defines the mediation process in
mass communication.
3)
Mass communication is filtered communication. This
filtering processing is called gatekeeping.
For example, a news report in a newspaper or on a television channel filtered
or controlled at different level by reporter, sub editor, news editor, editor.
4)
It is the most complicated form of communication as it
involves complex technology like satellites digital networks, management
structure, marketing chain etc.
5)
Mass communication can alter the way the society thinks
about events and attitudes.
6)
Mass communication experience is transient. It means
that once you used a message (for example, a news report or a film) you may not
use it again. The message is meant to be used once and it is gone. Who will
read yesterday’s newspaper?
7)
Mass communication is most often remains as one-way
communication. As receivers, how many of us write letters to editor (sender)? A
very few. But, in interpersonal communication, senders and receivers are in
active conversation sending feedback to each other.
Mass
communication influence our daily life more than any other cultural
institution. They are our main sources of news and entertainment. They define
our purchase decision, voting behavior, academic achievement and so on. Because
of this all-encompassing impact of mass media, politicians, businessmen and
government agencies depend on media to influence people. During election time,
we witness politicians spending millions of ringgit for political campaign
through mass media. Business firms across the world spend billions of dollars to
market their products with the help of mass media advertisements. We are
informed of the policies of our governments through newspapers and electronic
media. Likewise, we people need mass media to express our needs, complaints and
wishes to the authorities. In short, role of mass media in our society is
omnipresent.
3.0 UNIQUE
ASPECTS OF MASS COMMUNICATION
Mass communication is characterized by
the transmission of complex messages to large and diverse audiences, using
sophisticated technology of communication.
Mass media refers to the institutions
that provide such messages: newspapers, magazines, television, radio, film and
multimedia Web sites. The term also is used for the specific institutions of
mass media, such as radio networks and television stations, movie companies,
music producers, and the Internet.
Here are some
unique aspects of mass communication.
- The
source of mass communication
message generally is a person or group operating within an organizational
setting. Examples of these sources are news reporters, television
producers and magazine editors. Likewise, the source generally is a
multiple entity, and the resulting message is the work of several persons.
For example, producers, writers, actors, directors and video editors all
work together to create a television program. Publishers, reporters,
editors, copyeditors, typesetters, graphic designers and photographers
together produce a magazine article.
Figure 2: Sources of mass
communication
- Mass
media messages are
sophisticated and complex. Whereas the message in interpersonal
communication may be simple words and short sentences, mass media messages
are quite elaborate. Examples of mass media message are a news report, a
novel, a movie, a television program, a magazine article, a newspaper
column, a music video, and a billboard advertisement.
Figure 3: Example of mass media
messages sent through mobile devices
- Channels of mass media, also
called mass vehicles, involve
one or more aspects of technology. Radio, for example, involves tape
machines, microphones, devices that digitize sound waves, transmitters
that disseminate them, and receiving units that decode the sound waves and
render them back into audio form approximating the original. Sometimes, as
in the case of musical recording, the channel of mass communication may
even enhance the sound quality of the original.
Figure 4: Channels of mass media
- Audiences generally are
self-selected, people who tune in to a particular television or who read a
particular magazine. Mass audiences also are heterogeneous, meaning that
they are both large and diverse. They actually are made up of groups of
people with dissimilar background, demographics, and socio-political
characteristics; they are spread over a vast geographic area. Such
audiences are brought together by a single shared interest in the
particular message available through the mass medium. Message sources
generally have only limited information about their audiences. Radio
station managers may know audience demographics such as average ages,
incomes, political interests, and so on, but they know little about the
individual members of the audience. Indeed, one characteristic of mass
media is that the audience members essentially remain anonymous.
Figure 5: Audiences can be vary
depends on the channels
- Feedback is minimal in mass media,
and no real give-and-take is practically possible. Message flow typically
is one-way, from source to receiver. Traditionally, feedback has been
minimal and generally delayed. A newspaper reader could write a letter to
the editor; a television viewer might respond to a survey. With the
Internet, new possibility is being found to increase feedback, but it
remains limited.
Figure 6: Feedback in mass
communication
- Like
other forms of mediated communication, noise exists in the mass context. Noise may be semantic,
environmental or mechanical.
Figure 7: Noise in mass communication
Sociologists
look at the various ways media can reflect and enrich culture. The mass
communication present examples of creativity and social culture identified with
music, literature, art and so on. These values often are categorized as high
culture associated with sophisticated and educated tastes, and low culture
identified with the masses. The elitist view supports the high-culture model
and suggest that the media owe it to society to model only the best in taste
and values, even if the people are unappreciative of the offerings. The
populist view associated with the low arts is that the media should give the
people what they want.
Canadian
communication theorist Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980) popularized the notion that
the mass media are re-creating society by turning it into a global village, a
new world-wide tribe in which people learn about themselves and others by
media-provided observation and pseudo-personal experience. He believed that the
printed word engaged the mind and detribalized society, whereas the electronic
media stimulate the senses and thus can retribalize society.
4.0 THE
ROLE OF GATEKEEPER IN MH370 NEWS REPORTING
For a long time,
gatekeeping has provided a dominant paradigm for journalistic news gathering
and news publishing in the mass media, both for journalists’ own
conceptualization of their work and for academic studies of this mediation
process. In media such as print, radio, and TV, with their inherent strictures
of available column space, air time, or transmission frequencies, it is
necessary to have established mechanisms which police these gates and select
events to be reported according to specific criteria of newsworthiness, such as
Galtung & Ruge’s news values (1965). Following Lewin and White, McQuail
defines gatekeeping as “the process by
which selections are made in media work, especially decisions whether or not to
admit a particular news story to pass through the “gates” of a news medium into
the news channels” (1994: 213).
Lately, however,
the effectiveness of gatekeeping has been questioned from a number of
perspectives: on the one hand, increasingly ‘the practice of journalism is
being contaminated from outside. The “fourth estate” is in danger of being
overwhelmed by the “fifth estate”, the growing number of “PR merchants and spin
doctors” influencing the news agenda’ (Turner et al. 2000: 29, following
Franklin) and undermining the reliability of the gatekeeping process itself.
This is also related to the fact that ever since the emergence of 24-hour
broadcast news services and even more so since the advent of online news the
reporting speed required of news services has also increased steadily, which
has made gatekeepers even more likely to rely on prepared material from this
‘fifth estate’ rather than spending time and money on their own, independent
research.
Since internet
has given us access to almost limitless sources of the same news story by
different journalists of separate news organization which then enables us to
get various prospects on the same story.
News also holds us individuals with a social glue that provides us with
subjects to talk about in real life or on blogs, forums, Facebook and Twitter.
If we consider the lost Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 as an example, which became a sensational news story and
almost everybody on the globe knows about this incident, as a result internet
has produced a wide range of speculation on the fate of MH370 and still continuing because the readers get attached to
sensational stories and will keep following it until they reach an outcome. As
a result, newspapers and other news forms have created numerous predictive
stories to get our attention on their articles on the web and other news media
channels. Which is again pointed out by Carey in his transmission model of
communication, where the focus stays with such questions as, how are people affected,
what are their attitudes towards the particular news and finally is it an
adequate representation of reality.
The day after
reports confirmed that the plane had disappeared, CNN ran broadcasts that
speculated the different alternative endings to this story. With no evidence or
facts to back up their accusations, CNN ran newscast after newscast stating how
the wing could have flown off or that the pilots could be terrorists among
other radical suggestions. The problem is that these random, radical accusations
put ideas into the minds of those watching at home. The search for the plane
and the passengers became a dramatic movie. The most obnoxious and radical
experts were placed on FOX News broadcasts to fill time slots and keep the
public engaged with the story. Three weeks later, the story is still a headline
despite no new evidence. The public is so intrigued with this story that when
search efforts find anything on their radar it becomes breaking news – even
when what they have found turns out to be a dead jellyfish or a piece of
garbage.
Figure 8: Example of fake news
circulating online that create media frenzy
Figure 9: Even well-known media outlet
are not exempted from the role of gatekeeping
Figure 10: Another example of fake news
circulating on social media regarding MH370
Figure 11: Gatekeeper play a major role
in filtering news
The concept of
gatekeeping was introduced by Lewin in 1947 who defined news as flowing in a
channel controlled by several gatekeepers (Lee, 2012). It described how news
selection was made by editors and journalists from a variety of sources.
However, the traditional gatekeeping model is not being followed any longer in
the online environment. Readers can now bypass the traditional gatekeepers who
were influential as they held the power of regulate news and seek information
that interests them while overlooking the transitional processors of news
(Paterson, 2005). As a result, the meaning of gatekeeping “has shifted from the
decision about what should be produced to control of what materials get to
consumers and of what material they become aware” (Hargittai, 2004). Besides,
online communication can make matters striking to news readers, which are
typically gathered or nominated by traditional gatekeepers and the users.
The internet
poses a challenge for journalists as much as anybody else because the profound
changes that are being developed constantly on gathering, production and
distribution of information. Journalists have to be on high alert to cope up
with these changes (Agostini, 2012). On one side, we have the devotees of
digital age speaking the praises of online information and all ready to
completely move forward from the newspapers and journalists alike. On the
other, we have the traditional sceptics who believes no matter what changes
come through the advancement of technology, professional journalists and organizations
will always be needed for fact checking of the news (Agostini, 2012).
Innovation and advancement of internet has profoundly affected the profession
of journalism but that doesn’t mean it has put an end to this profession
because the key transformation were focused on the modes of production and its
tools. For example; radio never replaced the need of newspaper and television
did not force radio out of the context but it is true when a newer mode of
distribution arrives in the profession of mews media the old one suffers as it
loses audience. Changes are growing on this dispute as well because all the
different news media brings some advantage over the other, securing their own
segment of audience which means they have all learned to live with each other
fulfilling the diverse expectations of their audience (Pavlik, 2010).
Finally, as it
is already happening, internet and web will keep transforming the landscape of
news media and journalism on the fact of gathering and reporting news. This
change in approach will only make the fourth estate even stronger as
eyewitnesses are becoming reporters via the social networks, but the world is
still going to need journalists to validate facts. Internet has set the news
media free, as there is no story big enough that would not fit in the columns of
the web and there is no video long enough that it will run out of time.
5.0 CONCLUSIONS
Mass media is a
communication instrument that enables information and experiences to be
recorded and transferred to a large audience and in heterogeneous form. Mass Communication
makes it possible to bridge gap in time and distance besides facilitating
information access.
The relationship
between mass media and the audience is very close. The process of message
transmission through mass communication uses a mass media mediator. In the
process of channeling information, various actors are involved in determining
the messages is delivered to the audience.
The other
purpose of this assignment is to determine the Gatekeeper’s role in breaking
news. The subjects made it very clear that gatekeeper played a large role in
the Gatekeeping process. Although there were very few official procedures that
were used, all of the sites had an unofficial process that gave the Gatekeeper
guidelines which are very necessary. News judgment also plays a key role in the
process, according to the subjects.
The Gatekeeper’s
job now entails deciding which news will be presented to the audience and in
which format. He must decide what breaking news goes onto the audience. The
Gatekeeper must organize the constant flow and put it in a recognizable format
so the reader doesn’t become overwhelmed with information. And this makes the
job of a Gatekeeper even more important.
ATTACHMENT
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