Perspectives on Mass Communication Research Methods

PERSPECTIVES ON MASS
COMMUNICATION
RESEARCH METHODS

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Literature review..........................................................................................................................3
ESSAY.........................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

Aims -
The aim of this report is to evaluate the concept of mass media into the context of public relation
practitioner.
Objectives-
 To Understand the conception of mass media research and social media.
 To find the increased usage of social media amongst the public relations practitioners.
 To determine challenges that are brought up by the social media for the public relations
practitioners.
Literature review
Theme-1 Understanding the concept of mass media research and social media
According to Junsheng and et.al., (2019 ) Mass media is associated with the use of
television, radio, movies, advertisements, magazines, newspaper and the internet which are used
by number of companies, reporters, public relation practitioners and number of other people to
communicate the essential information covering huge part of audience in one short. It is the most
famous mean of transferring the important information across the globe. The term MASS itself
indicates that it helps in communicating to a large audience at one time. Whereas, social media
comes under the huge scope of mass media. The media in both the concepts, mass media and
social media , remain constant and both of them represent the means of communication. The
name “SOCIAL” refers to the sharing and receiving of the information with the world and
connecting with different individuals. It can be with the help of internet, newspaper, radio,
television etc. But, at the same time in the views of Anderson and Jiang, (2018)
social media is more of the internet usage that is done by the youth of the world, the most. With
the technologies evolving at every second on the globe, even the middle age people are getting
influenced by them and as a result, social media has become one of the most used thing by every
individual on earth.
In this support Auxier, and Anderson, (2021) states that where mass media is defined as
the media technologies which are used in order to cover large audience, social media is basically
a computer-based technology which enables the individuals to create the content and then share

it by participating in the social networking. The social media technologies covers a huge part it
exists beyond the use of twitter and Instagram. They are of 7 types such as traditional sites of
social networking, social review sites, video and image sharing sites, video hosting sites,
community blogs, discussion sites and economy networks. All these social networking sites are
used for specific purposes by different kinds of people. The mas media also has 4 functions
namely: Surveillance, interpretation, entertainment, correlation and socialization. Mass media is
a broad concept than social media, mass media, it is used for providing necessary information to
the world at the hard times and also provide the world with the entertainment channels through
the television or thorough the radios. But it is more like one way of communication. Whereas,
social media encompasses two-way communication and is generally connecting different parts of
the world. It is more towards connecting the individuals with the same interest and with the same
talent on big platforms such as the Facebook, Instagram, Twitter etc. It gives an option to the
individuals to revert through the replies and comments. These days with the help of social media
different cultures and traditions are also spreading there awareness to the world. Hence, both
mass media and social media cover the large audience but at the same time, both of them, serve
different purpose to the society.
Theme-2 Discussing the increased usage of social media amongst the public relations
practitioners.
According to the Scott, (2022) it has been observed that the role of social media has been
significantly increased. The role of public relation practitioner is to influence person like
investors, business partners, shareholders, stakeholders etc. it is evident that the users of social
media are greatly impacted by the trends that is being followed on such social media sites. The
public relation practitioner uses this media platforms to gain trust of the consumer in the
products and the brand of the company. Another thing desribed as per Quesenberry, (2020)
behind increasing use in media platforms is that this platforms act as the best communication
medium between consumer and the brand which makes sure that there is no gap and doubts in
the mind of individuals. Further, this also allows real time messaging system for stronger hold of
company over its consumer. The relationship marketing has gained good result in recent times
and that has been the another reason.