Authors: Bogdanor
Summary: In slightly greater than 2300 words, this entry discusses the meanings of mass communication and mass media, explains six significant features of mass communication, and describes the contemporary field of media studies.
'Mass communication' refers to the profusion of accessible, standardized messages aimed at wide social segments. 'Mass media' are the specialized, professional institutions that produce and distribute these messages. The technology-fueled growth of the media industry has led to "media dependence" at the individual and societal levels. This in turn has led to an era of "media politics."
The entry next details six particularly significant features of mass communication and media, as well as their political and social consequences. These six are: heterogeneous audience composition, media's leisure-time consumption, mass communication's one-way information flow, the communications' mediated and limited nature, the rise of the professional communicator, and, finally, mass media's broad exposure. The infinite possible combinations and variations of these six characteristics lead to different media arrangements in different systems.
The remainder of the entry surveys the field of media study and scholarship. Varying academic and ideological perspectives are introduced, as are their corresponding beliefs and assumptions. The entry concludes by considering recent technological developments and their implications for the future of mass communication and media studies.