The Impact of Mass Media on Society

Running Head: Sociology
Sociology
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SystemJP
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Sociology 1
“Mass Media”
Thesis Statement: The purpose of the research essay is to enlighten the reader about the mass
media, its characteristics and its impact on people in the society. It explains the importance of
Mass Media and how it affects the interest of people in society.
Mass media refers to diverse range of media technologies that help in reaching to the large
audience through mass communication. There are different types of technologies introduced in
the environment that helps the organization in implementing the theory of mass media. Various
tools like television, radio, websites etc. are a form of mass media because it helps the
organizations to provide information to the mass. Further, it should be noted that mass media can
be classified under nine characteristics that are books, movies, internet, radio, magazines,
television, newspaper, recordings and digital media. Digital media came late in this industry but
definitely a worthy one.
A sociologist named John Thompson of Cambridge University developed five characteristics of
mass communication that have been widely implemented in the industry. First characteristic
explain that mass media comprise of both technical and institutional methods of production and
distribution. This characteristic can be clearly understood by taking an example of internet
because post information on internet requires both skills and methods. Further, it also involves
commodification of symbolic forms that means, the production of qualitative information relies
on its ability to sell the stock in large quantities. Like in case of newspaper, the organization
relies on the number of copies sold by them in the environment. Third characteristic is that it
separate context between production and reception of information. Fourth characteristic is that
mass media reaches to people present far from the geographical boundations of an organization.
Lastly, the process of mass media distributes information from one to many form of
communication whereby the products are mass produced (Leitner, 2017).
The fact should be noted that mass media is not just an industry or kind of work but it is much
more than that because it is a source through which information is passed in the community. The
purpose of mass media is to encompass the things that are right and things that are important for
people to know. There are specifically three purposes of mass media that are advocacy,
entertainment and public service announcement. Mass media advocate for both business and

Sociology 2
social concern as this aspect include advertising, marketing, public communication and relations
as well (Sterin, & Winston, 2017). Through mass media, people communicate their views and
opinions to other and comment on the crucial judgments made by the superior authorities.
Second purpose of mass media is entertainment as it is also used as a source of performing arts,
music and acting skills in the environment. People also make use of mass media to entertain
themselves. Thirdly, mass media is also used as a public service announcement and emergency
alerts. As this source is used to deliver information to large number of people, at once due to
which the political group mass use of such media to express their wordings to the people
publically (Kannan, 2017).
The fact should be noted that mass media is tool to generate information and supply it to the
whole public. So, it become difficult for the institutions to find the right type of information that
is actually reliable and authentic and circulate it to the public. As a single miscommunication of
information can lead to major issues, confusions and riots among people. Thus, it is crucial to
examine the reliability of the information and then communicate it in its original form so that
people also attain same picture about the scenario in their minds. Mass media is the link between
the real source of information and the public.
The stance should be noted that three major effects of mass media were identified in the
community that are the knowledge gap, agenda setting and cultivation of perception. The
knowledge gap means that mass media influences the knowledge of people by providing them
appealing knowledge and information extracted from the environment. The effect of mass media
is that it either creates or fills the gap of knowledge. It can create the gap of knowledge by
providing ineffective or partial information to the people in the environment. Such information
can create confusion among people that can make them question their personal skills and
knowledge which can negatively affect their behavior (Geber, Scherer, & Hefner, 2016). Further,
it fills the knowledge gap by providing original and true information in the environment. Further,
the second effect of mass media in the environment is agenda setting. People in the environment
are influenced on how they think about the issues to due to selective nature of what media
choose for public consumption.
For instance, Malala Yousafzai was shot in her head for protesting against Taliban to read and
study. Her story was spread all over the world and people highly got inspired by it as well. This