Mass media and society
Mass media carry messages to large, scattered audiences through print, radio, TV and digital platforms. They inform, educate and entertain, and they shape public opinion.
Mass media theories
| Theory | Proponent | Key idea |
|---|---|---|
| Hypodermic needle (magic bullet) | Linked to Lasswell's propaganda studies | Media inject messages straight into a passive audience |
| Two-step flow | Lazarsfeld and Katz | Media influence passes through opinion leaders to the public |
| Agenda setting | McCombs and Shaw | Media tell people what to think about, not what to think |
| Uses and gratifications | Katz, Blumler and Gurevitch | An active audience chooses media to satisfy its needs |
| Cultivation | George Gerbner | Heavy TV viewing shapes people's picture of reality |
| Spiral of silence | Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann | People hide views they believe are in the minority |
| Gatekeeping | Kurt Lewin; applied to news by David Manning White | Editors decide which stories reach the public |
| Medium is the message | Marshall McLuhan | The medium itself shapes society; he also coined 'global village' |
Functions of mass media
- Surveillance: news about the world around us (Lasswell).
- Correlation: interpreting events and linking the parts of society (Lasswell).
- Transmission of culture: passing values to the next generation (Lasswell).
- Entertainment: added as a fourth function by Charles Wright.
- Education and development: for example SITE, Gyan Darshan and SWAYAM PRABHA.
- Watchdog: the press as the 'fourth estate' of democracy.
Media and society: two sides
Media literacy, the ability to access, analyse and evaluate media, is the best defence.
Media in India: landmarks
| Landmark | Fact |
|---|---|
| First newspaper | Hicky's Bengal Gazette, Calcutta, 1780 |
| Doordarshan | Began in Delhi in 1959 |
| SITE | Satellite Instructional Television Experiment, 1975-76: educational TV for villages |
| Prasar Bharati | Public broadcaster overseeing Doordarshan and All India Radio |
| First campus community radio | Anna FM, Anna University, Chennai, 2004 |
NET asks you to match theories with proponents (agenda setting, two-step flow, cultivation, spiral of silence), recall McLuhan's phrases, and judge statements on media's social effects such as fake news and the digital divide.
Typical MCQ: “'Media tell us what to think about, not what to think' sums up which theory?” The agenda-setting theory of McCombs and Shaw.
Typical MCQ: “Which theory says audiences actively choose media to meet their needs?” Uses and gratifications theory (Katz, Blumler and Gurevitch).
McLuhan = medium; McCombs = agenda; Gerbner grows beliefs through heavy TV (cultivation); Noelle-Neumann = no talking (spiral of silence).