A Critical Study on “Characteristics of Media Under the Broad Light of Social, Economic and Political Factors.”

A Critical Study on “Characteristics of Media under the Broad Light of Social, Economic and Political Factors.”

Providing knowledge, information and entertainment books, newspapers, magazines, radio, film, TV and the Internet are very popular in every part of the world. Mass media has become one of the most important means of modern communication and countless institutions and individuals are producing diverse types of contents in every moment.En general we can say that Mass Media deals mainly with production and distribution of symbolic content. It aims to reach the largest possible audience and wants to be accessible for everyone. However, consummation and support of Mass Media should be everybody’s own decision. There are various targeted groups so that for each special interest many different sources can be found. Furthermore, other characteristics of Mass Media are the presence of professional communicators who provide excellent interaction with society and the multiplicity of gatekeepers that filter the essential parts.
There is a big responsibility in organisation and management of Mass Media. Because Mass communication doesn’t consist only of the mass media, complex and formal organizations are essential. They permit the general diffusion of knowledge about life in the world today and are responsible for society’s development. As media organizations are owned by very different kinds of representatives of society their effects diverse a lot. They are part of society. So, as they take information out of it they disseminate their content within society. Because of that these organizations have complex relationship with cultures, ideologies, recent technologies, economic systems, actual interests and, of course, political systems and government. With this big influence they can permit themselves to make a huge profit to be established and to operate.
Every kind of social service behind Mass Media and media institutions has to be considered in two ways. Media is no welfare-organization to educate people. It is an industry, a big business with many influential professionals and major investment for equipment and facilities. Media unite markets, products and technology. Products can be used and recycled in multiple ways. The business involves creativity and uncertainty and concentration is its natural tendency. In fact, Media have high fixed costs and in addition it is very difficult to enter this business.
To finance and maintain Mass Media this industry is dependent on advertising revenues, direct audience revenues, audience donation, auxiliary enterprises, and private support and government subsidies. Advertising is the most popular way to treat high costs of the media business. And it is on newspapers that advertisers spend most money. There they have the possibility of display and classified ads. Another important financial point is the direct selling of a product to the audience. It is the last step, the delivery to the receiver.
With all these sources Mass Media business is pretty successful in the whole world. But with its big commercial importance we have to be careful with our judgements. In some cases business interest might be bigger than the interest in social service. Then, the product’s quality might be reduced, gatekeepers would provide only information in view of the quickest profit and there would be more advertising than information.
In general Mass Media is a very useful and important mean of communication in every society. Although, we should always be aware of the big influence they have in our daily life and opinion. As their interests are very variable we should always be critical and judge about a topic only after having read several documents about it. Everyone, if in sender or receiver position, has to know which big responsibility he has got communicating and distributing thoughts and information among the people.
The conflict between Mass Media as a social service and as a business is a very often discussed topic. In the optimal case everybody gives first priority to social service. In further times the sense why media had been established was in order to give a voice to the voiceless in the society, to inform and to educate people. The concept of business that nowadays gets so much attention was developed much later. The professionalism of Mass Media and the upbringing of the Internet have caused an intensive advertising and a commercial culture.
On the other hand we have to see the moving market and the importance of business to survive on it. Capital is needed, products have a certain market and its product is bought and sold in the market. As a formal organization these steps are essential and prove that media is a business that is directly related to its existence.
Now, the dangerous point is that the business interest becomes more important than the original functions of media. Information, education and entertainment of the people are only examples for the complex idea about Mass Media. According to the scholar Dominick functions of media are mainly characterized by Surveillance, Interpretation, Linkage, Transmission of Values and Entertainment.
Society has to be informed and warned about threats and helpful news and tips in everyday life. Furthermore Mass Media provides information on the ultimate meaning and significance. With gatekeepers it selects and interprets events according to the actual situation and interest of the consumer. Then, it functions as linkage between different aspects of society that are not directly connected. So the interest of some TV-Stars in their home town papers is reflected in other part and consumed as “news” by fans.
Another very important function of Mass Media is the transmission of values. Recent fashion, stars, advertising, cultural events and so on are presented by media and influence the social live of their consumers. How you are expected to behave, to react and what values are important you can learn from the media. But it can also teach that it is important to watch your health, to make up your own mind and to live conscientiously every moment.
All the pictures and sound recordings that catch our attention and make us happy while using Mass Media are mostly dedicated to entertain the audience. For around 12 percent of the content is made for entertainment, to relax and to get off the stressful day. On TV most of the emissions are dedicated to this function. So we said media is a business and has to stay in equilibrium with its original functions. If there is misuse of Mass Media people can be influenced in the wrong way, they can be transmitted dangerous and false information and they might be forced to actions they would never do. Media can be used for propaganda and complete control of the audience is not so far. These kinds of misuse are called dysfunctions.
It is not easy to find the optimal balance between profit and service. Good media with high quality is characterized by a very good hybrid of service and business. You should always watch out for that genius solution of providing knowledge and never lose the critical view of any kind of information you get.
We are living in a very fast developing and globalizing world. Every development is due to modernization, improvement of old administration methods and the use of new technology. With the improvement of electronic media and daily reports on achievements electronic media dominates over print media that are the oldest form of Mass Media.
Nevertheless Print Media are still forming an important part of Media Industry. Basically said, words printed with ink on paper that is attached in different ways, provides different kinds of information, education and entertainment. They consists of cover, chapters or themes, pictures, advertising and so on and mostly big emphasis is made on make-up. There are three types of Print Media: Books are seen as the cultural heritage providing literature, scientific reports, history etc. Newspapers unite news, articles and advertisement in a frequent and regular manner. Magazines focus on deeper research on topics and usually offer feature stories, interpretation, analysis or research. Print Media is searching a large audience but it mainly refers to educated readers and those who are not used to handle electronic media. Newspapers, as well as magazines are financed through advertising and circulation which makes ad more effective. It’s not so easy to publish a book successfully. Therefore promotion campaigns are usual. The increasing competition from TV, the Internet and Radio makes it difficult for Print Media to survive on the market. More and more e-books are bought, free news and information are distributed through the internet and the society becomes more and more attracted to TV programmes that are not as psychological exhausting as books e.g.
You can find national and multinational publisher, as well as general or specialized ones. According to papers and magazines there will always be group work. The team consists of publisher, editor, editorial staff, reporter, designer, circulation staff and management/advertising staff. However, group ownership and conglomeration leads to dependence and prevents diversity and plurality.
Every type of Print Media, books, newspapers and magazines, competes within their industry as well as with every other type of Mass Media. We speak of intra- and inter-industry competition. But they also complete and cooperate with each other.
This competition system is the same as Electronic Media shows. Broadcasting, like TV and Radio, Film and the Internet are in steady interaction and competition to each other, as well as within their own industry.
In contrast to Print Media, Electronic Media is highly commercialized. There is a mass market for advertisers through TV and every other electronic media industry is very dependent on revenue from ads. There can also be independent and non-commercial owners of electronic media, but commonly you find commercial enterprises, private or public owners and companies. For film industry it is more usual that ownership is divided into producer, distributor and exhibitor. In that case the direct-audience-revenue is more important than the revenue of advertising. For the Internet it is rarely clear whether a private person or a company owns the content of websites, merchandise projects and so on.
While Print Media has its roots in the invention of book printing by Gutenberg in 1450 the technology of electronic media is much younger. Radio has been the first possibility to allow millions of people throughout vast geographical area to listen simultaneously to the same messages. Now broadcasting content is carried through the airway on a special frequency. These waves are captured and later decoded by receiving sets. The digitalization of these signals has been a big achievement for electronic media. You can watch TV, listen to the Radio and be always on the latest news through the Internet. The Web transports files through hypertext transfer protocols and reaches every part of the world.
A big advantage of electronic media it can be live and the concept of conquering time and space is optimally implied. Electronic Media is able to provide every branch of human knowledge. Surveillance, interpretation, transmission of values, entertainment and linkage mixed up with a huge amount of advertising characterize its content. Information can be transmitted by audible (Radio) or audio-visual (TV, film, online) means. They provide speech, music, sound, silence and pictures that combined are forming films. So we can say that this kind of media industry has much more ways to reach the audience than print media industry. As they can offer all sort of information in various ways the audience is becoming larger and larger. Furthermore, the Internet replaces every other media type according to the content. There are online services, online merchandise, online TV, Radio, encyclopaedia, e-books, games, etc.
As mentioned above, the competition between Print Media and Electronic Media is very intensive and also within each industry it is not easy to handle. Therefore, earlier Mass Media try to negotiate and coordinate with modern Mass Media like TV and the Internet. Competition not only weakens some enterprises but is necessary for the steady development of the market. Different types of Mass Media profit of each other, they negotiate, collaborate and complete each other. For example TV programmes and new films are presented in Newspapers and on the Internet. You can read magazines and order them online. A radio cites news and comments from newspapers and organizes music events that are broadcast by TV. This kind of association of two institutions for mutual benefit is called Symbiosis.
Because of symbiosis of Mass Media the optimal result (to provide best quality to the largest audience), quick development and new achievements are possible.
As Mass Media demands such a high attention in society various systems have been developed regarding their service and support. These external service systems of media organizations are called media support system. We distinguish advertising, public relations (PR), news agencies (wire services), syndicates, music industry, show business, distribution system and measuring services.

Advertising on the one hand can be understood as content of mass media which appears as commercial message in paid space or time. On the other hand it is a profession of advertising agencies. Nowadays, wherever we look or whatever we listen to advertising is present. It has been fairly institutionalized and become increasingly global phenomenon. The ad industry is based on a system of interacting organizations and institutions in which advertisers represent its heart. That kind of industry manages huge amounts of money. Ad campaigns are very expensive and extensive. The agency is often represented in a position between the advertiser and the media.
The public relations (PR) involve deliberate, planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain mutual understanding between organization and its public. PR can also be used to describe a group of profession communicators who called themselves PR practitioners.
It can also be considered as type of communication process that evolved to solve specific social needs. Furthermore, it includes specialized body of knowledge, skills and methods and has been understood by promotional mix in contemporary marketing context. Propaganda, publicity, press agency and lobbying are all tools of PR industry but it should never be confined just for that.
News agencies or wireless services mean organizations that distribute news stories and pictures to its members for publication in newspapers or magazines, as well as in broadcast news production. The development of news agencies is one of the consequences of the quick development of mass media. The role of the wire services has basically 2 functions: to gather and to distribute news and news analysis. Nowadays, press agencies and associations vary in form and are steady modernized. The most important advantage of a wire or a syndicate is that you don’t need to have correspondents throughout the world. So costs are relatively low. In that way even poor media houses can survive on the market and Mass Media can reach everyone. Wire services are used all cross the world; they provide wide range of shared information to the people of different nations.
Syndicates are the sale of television series or radio shows for broadcasts or of newspaper column for synchronized publication. They mostly provide entertainment and opinion material for newspapers, unlike wire services, which distribute their wares to both print and broadcast media. They are privately held companies. Music is one of the most prominent industries today as it attracts the attention of wide range of audiences. Many people who believe music as a part of life are engrossed in music whether it is on radio, TV or feature film.
The development of mass media has also led to the rise in show business. So development of entertainment industry is directly linked with the mass media is also using business to attract audience. The distribution system is related to the media print where a large number of distribution channel has been developed. It helps mass media industry to reach the audiences more directly.
A similar function is formed by measuring and research services. They also help mass media giving a frequent feedback through ratings, market research and polls. After collecting data they sell themselves to the advertisers.