The mass media include a wide variety of forms, including television, newspapers, films, magazines, radio, advertisements, video games and CDs. They are referred to as ‘mass’ media because they reach mass audiences – audiences comprised of very large numbers of people. They are also sometimes referred to as mass communications. For many in your generation it is probably difficult to imagine a world without some form of mass media and communications.
Mass media is part of our everyday life. In many middle class households across the country people wake up only to put on the radio, switch on the television, look for the morning newspaper. The younger children of the same households may first glance at their mobile phones to check their missed calls. Plumbers, electricians, carpenters, painters and sundry other service providers in many urban centres have a mobile telephone where they can be easily contacted. Many shops in cities increasingly have a small television set. Customers who come in may exchange bits of conversation about the cricket match being telecasted or the film being shown. Indians abroad keep regular touch with friends and families back home over the internet and telephone. Migrants from working class population in the cities are regularly in touch with their families in the villagesover the phone. Have you seen the range of advertisements of mobile phones?
Have you noticed the diverse social groups that they are catering to? Are you surprised that the CBSE Board results are available to you on both the internet and over the mobile phone. Indeed this very book is available on the internet. it is obvious that there has been a phenomenal expansion of mass communication of all kinds in recent years. As students of sociology, there are many aspects to this growth which is of great interest to us. First, while we recognise the specificity of the current communication revolution, it is important to go back a little and sketch out the growth of modern mass media in the world and in India. This helps us realise that like any other social institution the structure and content of mass media is shaped by changes in the economic, political and socio-cultural contexts. For instance, we see how central the state and its vision of development influenced the media in the first decades after independence. And how in the post 1990 period of globalisation the market has a key role to play. Second, this help us better appreciate how the relationship between mass media and communication with society is dialectical. Both influence each other. The nature and role of mass media is influenced by the society in which it is located. At the same time the far reaching influence of mass media on society cannot be over-emphasised. We shall see his dialectical relationship when we discuss in this chapter (a) the role of media in colonial India, (b) in the first decades after independence and (c) and finally in the context of globalisation. Third, mass communication is different from other means of communication as it requires a formal structural organisation to meet large-scale capital, production and management demands. You will find, therefore, that the state and/or the market have a major role in the structure and functioning of mass media. Mass media functions through very large organisations with major investments and large body of employees. Fourth, there are sharp differences between how easily different sections of people can use mass media. You will recall the concept of digital divide from the last chapter
THE BEGINNINGS OF MODERN MASS MEDIA
The first modern mass media institution began with the development of the printing press. Although the history of print in certain societies dates back to many centuries, the first attempts at printing books using modern technologies began in Europe. This technique was first developed by Johann Gutenberg in 1440. Initial attempts at printing were restricted to religious books. With the Industrial Revolution, the print industry also grew. The first products of the press were restricted to an audience of literate elites. It was only in the mid 19th century, with further development in technologies, transportation and literacy that newspapers began to reach out to a mass audience. People living in different corners of the country found themselves reading or hearing the same news. It has been suggested that this was in many ways responsible for people across a country to feel connected and develop a sense of belonging or ‘we feeling’. The well known scholar Benedict Anderson has thus argued that this helped the growth of nationalism, the feeling that people who did not even know of each other’s existence feel like members of a family. It gave people who would never meet each other a sense of togetherness. Anderson thus suggested that we could think of the nation as an ‘imagined community’.
Question
1. Trace out the changes that have been occurring in the newspaper industry? What is your opinion on these changes?
2. Is radio as a medium of mass communication dying out? Discuss the potential that FM stations have in post-liberalisation India?
Please refer to attached file for NCERT Class 12 Sociology Mass Media and Communications
