UNIT 3-THEORIES OF MASS COMMUNICATION

Structure
3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4
3.5

Unit Objectives Introduction Theories of Mass Communication

Authoritarian theory 3.2.2 Libertarian theory 3.2.3 Social Responsibility 3.2.4 Soviet Media 3.2.5 Development Communication 3.2.6 Democratization Theory

Summary Exercises and Questions Further Reading

3.0 UNIT OBJECTIVES To learn the concept of various theories of Mass communication
To understand each theory through diagrammatic representation To study the importance of theories of Mass Communication

3.1 INTRODUCTION
Of all the times in history to be studying the mass media, this is probably the best. Not only the dizzying technological and economic upheavals within the media industries themselves make it so, but also the outpouring of theory, argument, and research on the mass media from diverse academic fields. Theories about mass communication have never been more plural or more contentious. The area of knowledge we provisionally call Mass Communication Theories is an unsettled terrain, something of a frontier, and frontiers are known for adventures and dangers, lawlessness and open vistas. It deals with central traditions of study, topics of debate, and conceptual problems in media studies. Mass communication theory is best understood as a branch of social theory. Indeed, the attempt to theorize society and communication arise in the same moment. A theorist is, one who argues, gives reasons and makes connections to

larger problems. Theory is not only something that people do in their armchairs; it is an art that every scholar, if not citizen and human, should cultivate. All theories are a re-approach with the past of an established theory.

3.2 THEORIES OF MASS COMMUNICATION 3.2.1 Authoritarian Theory

The Authoritarian theory of the press can be traced to the very beginning of printing. At that time, truth was thought to reside in those who held power-that is, the governing agency. Thus there was strict control of the press through the licensing of printers by the throne. Censorship was practiced if the ruler thought that information should be with held from the masses. Therefore, although the government did not necessarily own the press, it was looked on as being an advocate of the state. Today many nations will not admit that their countries are governed according to authoritarian principles, they publicly espouse libertarian concepts, but behind the scenes authoritarian practices are carried out. This term was first used by Siebert refers to an arrangement in which the press is subordinated to state power and the interests of a ruling class. The theory justifies advance censorship and punishment for deviation from externally set guidelines. Unacceptable attack on authority, deviation from official policy, or offences against moral codes should be criminal offences. Under certain circumstances, media are subjected to authoritarian tendencies in democratic regimes as well, especially in times of war and during internal and external emergencies. Other media like film, video, etc are subjected to censorship. Even the press, which is free, lost its independence and freedom during the emergency (1975-77). The authorities can and do use the provisions of official secrets act to deny free access to information, thereby hampering the freedom of press.

The table below will highlight the practice of this theory:

Complete Control

to varying Degrees of control

Complete press control

Criticism allowed, but government invokes Censorship

Special press laws lead to arrest of editors

Suppression of press opposition is more covert

Soviet Union China Yugoslavia

Colombia Egypt Syria

South Africa Iran, Iraq Pakistan Lebanon

Turkey Argentina Indonesia

CHECK YOUR PROGRESS Q1.Name countries, which have, complete control over the press?

3.2.2 Libertarian Theory

Today the open market place of ideas and the self -righting process define the boundaries of the libertarian theory of the press. In the seventeenth century John Milton defended the concepts of reason and the moral integrity of man in telling right from wrong, good from bad, and truth from falsehood in a powerful argument for intellectual freedom. Other exponents of this philosophy were John Stuart, Thomas Jefferson and other who believed in freedom of expression, rationalism, and natural rights. They saw as the presss function to inform, to sell, to entertain, to uphold the truth, and to keep check on the government. Press ownership in countries espousing the libertarian philosophy is likely to be private and should be free from defamation, obscenity, impropriety and wartime sedition. Countries practicing the libertarian philosophy today are the United States, Great Britain, and other western European nations. Other theories related to libertarian theory are the social responsibility theory and the objective theory of the press.

Libertarian theory is also called as the free press theory and is based on the fundamental right of an individual to freedom of expression, which is regarded as the main legitimating principle for print media in liberal democracies. In its simple form, it prescribes that an individual should be free to publish what he or she likes, it is thus extension of other rights to hold opinions freely, to express them, to assemble and organize with others. The free press theory needs no elaboration as is evident from the first amendment to the American constitution, which states that co ngress shall make no lawabridging the freedom of speech or of the press, it is thus simply an absolute right of the citizen. But the application of press freedom has hardly been straightforward. Milton, Stuart Mill and many others argued that if freedom is abused to the extent of threatening good morals and the authority of the state, it must be restrained. According to de Sola Pool (1973), no nation will indefinitely tolerate a freedom of the press that serves to divided the country and to open the flood gates of criticism against the freely chosen government that leads its. Moreover, much difficulty has arisen because press freedom has become identified with property rights (private ownership) and freedom from interference in the market. The free press theory or the libertarian theory thus protects the owners of media but fails to give equal expression to the rights o editors and journalists or of the audiences.

3.2.3 Social Responsibility Theory

The social responsibility theory is an extension of the libertarian theory in that the press recognizes that it has a responsibility to society to carry out its essential functions. The social responsibility theory ascribes basically the same six functions to the press as the libertarian theory: 1. Providing information, discussion, and debate on public affairs 2. Instructing and informing the public to make it capable of self government 3. Protecting the rights of the individual against the government through its watchdog function 4. Maintaining the economic equilibrium of the system by bringing together buyer, seller, and advertiser 5. Providing entertainment 6. Remaining independent of outside pressures by maintaining its own economic self-sufficiency.

The basic principles of the social responsibility theory uphold conflict resolution through discussion; there is high regard for public opinion, consumer action, and professional ethics and jealous guard over private rights and important social interests. This theory emerged in the United States in the twentieth century, and it is evidenced today in the Anglo-American nations. The social responsibility theory is based on the assumption that media serve essential functions in society. Therefore, it should accept and fulfill certain obligations to the society. These obligations are to be met by setting high professional standards in communication of information, truth, accuracy, objectivity and balance. In accepting and discharging these obligations, the media should be self-regulatory within the framework of law and established institutions. In the public interest, the media should underplay that news which might lead to crime, violence, and social tension or cause offence to ethnic or religious minorities. The media should be pluralist, should reflect the diversity of their society and allow access to various points of view, including the right to reply. This theory has lead to the establishment of self-regulatory bodies like the Press Council, which is responsible for Drawing up of statutes to protect editorial and journalistic practice Framing of codes of ethics Ensuring implementation of anti-monopoly legislation, and Regulation of advertising

3.2.4 Soviet Media Theory

This is also called as the communist media theory. Just as the social responsibility theory is an outgrowth of the libertarian theory, soviet-communist theory is an outgrowth of the authoritarian theory. However, whereas according to the authoritarian theory the press resides outside the government, in the soviet media theory the press and the state are held to be one. The main purpose of the sovietmedia theory is to ensure the success and continuance of the soviet socialist system and to promote the objectives of the soviet socialist party. This system is found mainly in the Soviet Union and other communist countries. In addition to the authoritarian theory this theory is related to the power of the press, gate keeping/information control, and agenda-setting theories.

Russian media was reorganized after the revolution of 1917. This theory is derived mainly from basic tenets of Marx and Engels. It envisages media to be under the control of the working class whose interest they are meant to serve. Private ownership of the press or other media is ruled out. The media must serve positive functions in society relating to information, education, motivation, and mobilization. The media must project society in accordance with the Marxist-Leninist principles. They must support progressive movements in the country and abroad. The media according to this theory are subject to the ultimate control of the state and are integrated with other instruments of political life. Within these limits, the media are expected to be self-regulatory. They must Act with responsibility Evolve and follow norms of professional conduct, and Respond to peoples needs and aspirations.

The media as per this theory are not subject to arbitrary interference as in the case of the authoritarian theory. CHECK YOUR PROGRESS Q1.Give another name of Soviet Media Theory.

3.2.6 Democratization Theory

This is the most recent addition to the list of normative theories; is relevant to the developed liberal societies but has some elements of the development media theory. Mc Quail notes that it is most difficult to formulate this theory partly because it lacks full legitimization and incorporation into media institutions and partly because some of its tenets are already to be found in some of the other theories. I n his opinion, this theory represents a challenge to the reigning theories and merits separate identification.

The main feature of the democratic participant theory relates to the needs, interests, and aspirations of the active receiver in a political society. It is concerned with the right to information, the right to answer back, the right to use the means of communication for interaction in the small-scale settings of the community. The theory favors Multiplicity of media Smallness of scale, of operation and Horizontality of communication at all levels. It opposes uniform, centralized, high cost, highly professionalized and state-controlled media.

It is argued that the media should exist primarily for the audiences and not for media organizations and professionals.

3.3 SUMMARY
Mass communication theory is best understood as a branch of social theory. Indeed, the attempt to theorize society and communication arise in the same moment. A theorist is, one who argues, gives reasons and makes connections to larger problems. Theory is not only something that people do in their armchairs; it is an art that every scholar, if not citizen and human, should cultivate. All theories are a reapproach with the past of an established theory.

3.4 EXERCISES AND QUESTIONS

Q1. Discuss any two theories of Mass Communication? Q2. What are the salient features of Authoritarian theory? Q3. What do we mean by Development Communication? Q4. What is the social responsibility of the press? Q5. Explain the features of the Soviet Media?

3.5 FURTHER READING

1. Mass Communication & Development Dr. Baldev Raj
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Gupta 2. Mass Communication in India Keval J Kumar 3. Mass Communication Journalism in India D S Mehta 4. Mass Communication Theory Denis Mc Quail

CHAPTER 1: Development of Human Communication

The Meaning of Communication Communication is an ever continuing process and an integral part of the world of all living things. The need for communication is as basic as the hunger for food and drink, perhaps even more so. It is an individual as well as a social need. Derived form the Latin word communis , meaning common, communication is a synonym for interchange, dialogue, sharing, interaction or communion. It is the passing of meaningful messages and the receiving of feedback. The Encyclopedia Britannica defines communication as the exchange of meaning between individuals or groups through a common system of symbols or language. Denis McQuail (Towards a Sociology of Mass Communication, 1975) sees human communication as the sending of meaningful messages from one person to another. These messages could be oral or written, visual or olfactory. He also includes laws, practices, customs, ways of dressing, gestures, military parades and flags as methods of communication. Human communication went through different stages of development. At first this development was driven by the process of mankinds evolution from the lower species, later it was driven by technological human progress. Historical Survey of Communication: The Age of Signs and Signals The Age of Speech and Language
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The Age of Writing The Age of Printing The Mass Communication Age The Age of Information Revolution

1. The Age of Signs and Signals Prehistoric humans were physically unable to talk. Communication was limited and determined by instincts. It was the age of signs and signals - drum messages, smoke signals, music, dance etc. 2. The Age of Speech and Language Mans first achievement was speech and language. It gave him an eminent position over others. Growth of different languages gave birth to different expressions that denoted distinctions within communities. Certain languages acquired the traits of others, e.g., the language of conquerors was absorbed into the local dialect. This then became the language of administration and commerce. 3. The Age of Writing About 5,000 years ago, hieroglyphic writing was developed by the Mayans and the Chinese. They used pictures with a standardized meaning. The Sumerians developed a different form of writing that represented sounds by symbols. This allowed information to be stored and for traditions to be passed on in writing. Clay, stone and later papyrus were developed and used as portable media. Writing gave permanence to the spoken language. Writing was slow to develop because the clergy, who were the seats of power, wanted it to be their sole privilege. 4. The Age of Print In the 1st century A.D, China invented paper. In the 8th century the Arab world began to manufacture paper. In the 15th century, the Gutenberg press was invented and printing began in Europe.
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As a consequence, information could be copied much faster and with far fewer mistakes than before. Availability of information was no longer restricted to the Roman Church and to nobility, but open to a wider section of European societies. This was the basis for further historical development that culminated in the ThirtyYears-War. Books were followed by the development of pamphlets and then newspapers in the 17th century. Some newspapers began to be edited by the then subjugated Asians and Africans in spite of severe opposition. Revolutionary journals began to see the light of day and enjoyed wide readership. 5. The Mass Communication Age In the 19th century, communication was determined by several media forms. Print media, especially newspapers, were supplemented by telegraph and telephone. The introduction of radio, film and television in the 20th century saw the emergence of the Mass Communication era. 6. The Age of Information Revolution At present, we are living amidst an information revolution. Integrated multimedia applications are now possible due to networks established from the development of digital communication technology. Hypertext structures form the basis for communication and navigation within the system. CONCLUSIONS Communication is a carrier of a social process and man is a social being because of communication. Communication influences others and in turn is influenced by them. Communication gives people a sense of belonging and reduces loneliness and frustration by helping people adapt to their environment. The communication revolution has marched along with the industrial revolution and the media has been shaped by powerful economic and social forces, such as the rise of democracy.

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CHAPTER 2: Theories of Communication

Chapter 1 focused on the developmental stages of Communication and summed up Communication as a complex and dynamic process leading to the evolution of meaning. The study of communication and mass media has led to the formulation of many theories: structural and functional theories believe that social structures are real and function in ways that can be observed objectively; cognitive and behavioral theories tend to focus on psychology of individuals; interactionist theories view social life as a process of interaction; interpretive theories uncover the ways people actually understand their own experience; and critical theories are concerned with the conflict of interests in society and the way communication perpetuates domination of one group over another . The earliest theories were those propounded by Western theorists Siebert, Paterson and Schramm in their book Four Theories Of the Press (1956). These were termed "normative theories" by McQuail in the sense that they "mainly express ideas of how the media ought to or can be expected to operate under a prevailing set of conditions and values." Each of the four original or classical theories is based on a particular political theory or economic scenario. CLASSICAL THEORIES Authoritarian Theory According to this theory, mass media, though not under the direct control of the State, had to follow its bidding. Under an Authoritarian approach in Western Europe, freedom of thought was jealously guarded by a few people (ruling classes), who were concerned with the emergence of a new middle class and were worried about the effects of printed matter on their thought process. Steps were taken to control the freedom of expression. The result was advocacy of complete dictatorship. The theory promoted zealous obedience to a hierarchical superior and reliance on threat and punishment to those who did not follow the censorship rules or did not respect authority. Censorship of the press was justified on the ground that the State always took precedence over the individual's right to freedom of expression.
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This theory stemmed from the authoritarian philosophy of Plato (407 - 327 B.C), who thought that the State was safe only in the hands of a few wise men. Thomas Hobbes (1588 - 1679), a British academician, argued that the power to maintain order was sovereign and individual objections were to be ignored. Engel, a German thinker further reinforced the theory by stating that freedom came into its supreme right only under Authoritarianism. The world has been witness to authoritarian means of control over media by both dictatorial and democratic governments. Libertarianism or Free Press Theory This movement is based on the right of an individual, and advocates absence of restraint. The basis of this theory dates back to 17th century England when the printing press made it possible to print several copies of a book or pamphlet at cheap rates. The State was thought of as a major source of interference on the rights of an individual and his property. Libertarians regarded taxation as institutional theft. Popular will (vox populi) was granted precedence over the power of State. Advocates of this theory were Lao Tzu, an early 16th century philosopher, John Locke of Great Britain in the17th century, John Milton, the epic poet ("Aeropagitica") and John Stuart Mill, an essayist ("On Liberty"). Milton in Aeropagitica in 1644, referred to a self righting process if free expression is permitted "let truth and falsehood grapple." In 1789, the French, in their Declaration Of The Rights Of Man, wrote "Every citizen may speak, write and publish freely." Out of such doctrines came the idea of a "free marketplace of ideas." George Orwell defined libertarianism as "allowing people to say things you do not want to hear". Libertarians argued that the press should be seen as the Fourth Estate reflecting public opinion. What the theory offers, in sum, is power without social responsibility. Social Responsibility Theory Virulent critics of the Free Press Theory were Wilbur Schramm, Siebert and Theodore Paterson. In their book Four Theories Of Press, they stated "pure libertarianism is antiquated, outdated and obsolete." They advocated the need for its replacement by the Social Responsibility theory. This theory can be said to have been initiated in the United States by the Commission of The Freedom Of Press, 1949. The commission found that the free
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market approach to press freedom had only increased the power of a single class and has not served the interests of the less welloff classes. The emergence of radio, TV and film suggested the need for some means of accountability. Thus the theory advocated some obligation on the part of the media to society. A judicial mix of self regulation and state regulation and high professional standards were imperative. Social Responsibility theory thus became the modern variation in which the duty to one"s conscience was the primary basis of the right of free expression. Soviet Media/Communist Theory This theory is derived from the ideologies of Marx and Engel that "the ideas of the ruling classes are the ruling ideas". It was thought that the entire mass media was saturated with bourgeois ideology. Lenin thought of private ownership as being incompatible with freedom of press and that modern technological means of information must be controlled for enjoying effective freedom of press. The theory advocated that the sole purpose of mass media was to educate the great masses of workers and not to give out information. The public was encouraged to give feedback as it was the only way the media would be able to cater to its interests. Two more theories were later added as the "four theories of the press" were not fully applicable to the non-aligned countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America, who were committed to social and economic development on their own terms. The two theories were: Development Communication Theory The underlying fact behind the genesis of this theory was that there can be no development without communication. Under the four classical theories, capitalism was legitimized, but under the Development communication theory, or Development Support Communication as it is otherwise called, the media undertook the role of carrying out positive developmental programmes, accepting restrictions and instructions from the State. The media subordinated themselves to political, economic, social and cultural needs. Hence the stress on "development communication" and "development journalism". There was tacit support from the UNESCO for this theory. The weakness of this
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theory is that "development" is often equated with government propaganda. Democratization/Democratic Participant Media Theory This theory vehemently opposes the commercialization of modern media and its top-down non-participant character. The need for access and right to communicate is stressed. Bureaucratic control of media is decried. 2) MAGIC BULLET/ HYPODERMIC NEEDLE/ STIMULUS RESPONSE THEORY Before the first World War, there was no separate field of study on Communication, but knowledge about mass communication was accumulating. An outcome of World War I propaganda efforts, the Magic Bullet or Hypodermic Needle Theory came into existence. It propounded the view that the mass media had a powerful influence on the mass audience and could deliberately alter or control peoples' behaviour. Klapper (1960) formulated several generalizations on the effects of mass media. His research findings are as follows: "Massmedia ordinarily does not serve as a necessary and sufficient cause of audience effect, but rather functions through a nexus of mediating factors and influences. These mediating factors render mass-communication as a contributory agent in a process of reinforcing the existing conditions." The main mediating factors which he considers responsible for the functions and effects of mass communications are - selective exposure i.e., people's tendency to expose themselves to those mass communications which are in agreement with their attitudes and interests; and - selective perception and retention i.e., people's inclination to organize the meaning of mass communication messages into accord with their already existing views. 3) TWO STEP FLOW THEORY In the early 40"s, before the invention of television, Lazarsfeld, Berelson and Goudet conducted an American survey on mass campaigns. The study revealed that informal social relationships had played a part in modifying the manner in which individuals selected content from the media campaign. The study also indicated that ideas often flowed from the radio and newspapers to opinion leaders and from them to the less active sections of
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society. Thus, informal social groups have some degree of influence on people and mould the way they select media content and act on it. Figure 2.1

Source: CIA Advertising at www.ciadvertising.org/ortega/Theories.htm (used by permission) 4) ONE STEP FLOW THEORY This theory simply stated that mass communication media channels communicate directly to the mass audience without the message being filtered by opinion leaders. 5) MULTI STEP FLOW THEORY This was based on the idea that there are a number of relays in the communication flow from a source to a large audience. 6) USES AND GRATIFICATION THEORY This theory propounded by Katz in 1970, is concerned with how people use media for gratification of their needs. An outcome of Abraham Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs, it propounds the fact that people choose what they want to see or read and the different media compete to satisfy each individual"s needs. In the hierarchy of needs, there are five levels in the form of a pyramid with the basic needs such as food and clothing at the base and the higher order needs climbing up the pyramid. The fulfillment of each lower level need leads to the individual looking to satisfy the next level of need and so on till he reaches the superior-most need of self-actualization. Figure 2.2

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Source :William G Huitt - Valdosta University at chiron.valdosta.edu/whuitt/ (used by permission)

The Uses and Gratifications approach reminds us that people use media for many purposes. As media users become increasingly confronted with choices, this approach should direct our attention to the audience. Lull's television research found that families used television for communication facilitation, relationship building, intimacy, and for structuring the day. In general researchers have found four kinds of gratifications: 1. Information - we want to find out about society and the world- we want to satisfy our curiosity. This would fit the news and documentaries which both give us a sense that we are learning about the world. 2. Personal Identity - we may watch the television in order to look for models for our behaviour. So, for example, we may identify with characters that we see in a soap. The characters help us to decide what feel about ourselves and if we agree with their actions and they succeed we feel better about ourselves. 3. Integration and Social Interaction - we use the media in order to find out more about the circumstances of other people. Watching a show helps us to empathize and sympathize with the lives of others so that we may even end up thinking of the characters in programme as friends. 4. Entertainment - sometimes we simply use the media for enjoyment, relaxation or just to fill time.

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Riley and Riley (1951) found that children in peer groups used adventure stories from the media for group games while individual children used media stories for fantasizing and daydreaming. The study thus found that different people use the same messages from the media for different purposes. Katz replaced the question "what do media do to people?" with the question "what do people do with the media?" Katz, Gurevitch & Hass found that the media are used by individuals to meet the following specific needs : Cognitive needs (acquiring information, knowledge and understanding); Affective needs (emotional, pleasurable experience); Personal integrative needs (strengthening self image); Social integrative needs (strengthening self image); Tension release needs (escape and diversion) McQuail, Blumler and Brown suggested the following individual needs categories: 1) Diversion (emotional release) 2) Personal Relationships (substitute of media for companionship). 3) Personal identity or individual psychology (value reinforcement, self understanding.) 4) Surveillance (information that may help an individual accomplish tasks.) B. Rubin and Bantz (1989) studied the uses and gratifications of "new technology" by examining VCR use. They found the following motives for VCR use: 1) library storage of movies and shows 2) watching music videos 3) Using exercise tapes 4) renting movies 5) letting children view 6) time-shifting 7) Socializing by viewing with others 8) Critical viewing including TV watching and studying tapes 7) SPIRAL OF SILENCE THEORY Propounded by Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, this theory states that the media publicizes opinions that are mainstream and people adjust their opinions according to their perceptions to avoid being isolated. Individuals who perceive their own opinion as being
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accepted will express it, whilst those who think themselves as being a minority, suppress their views. Innovators and change agents are unafraid to voice different opinions, as they do not fear isolation. Figure 2.3

Source: CCMS-Infobase at http://www.cultsock.ndirect.co.uk/ 8) CONSISTENCY THEORIES (1950s) Festinger formulated the consistency theories that talked about people"s need for consistency in their beliefs and judgements. In order to reduce dissonance created by inconsistencies in belief, judgments and action people expose themselves to information that is consistent with their ideas and actions, and they shut out other communications. 9) McCOMBS AND SHAW"S AGENDA SETTING THEORY This theory puts forth the ability of the media to influence the significance of events in the public's mind. The media set the agenda for the audience's discussion and mentally order and organize their world. The theory is consistent with a "use and gratification" approach. McCombs and Shaw assert that the agenda-setting function of the media causes the correlation between the media and public ordering of priorities. The people most affected by the media agenda are those who have a high need for orientation 10) Media Dependency Theory

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Developed by Ball-Rokeach and DeFluer, the key idea behind this theory is that audiences depend on media information to meet needs and reach goals, and social institutions and media systems interact with audiences to create needs, interests, and motives in the person. The degree of dependence is influenced by the number and centrality of information functions and social stability. Some questions that this theory raised were : Do media create needs? Do people turn to media to achieve gratification and satisfy needs? Are media needs personal, social, cultural, political, or all of these? "The media are our friends"??

11) STEPHENSON"S PLAY THEORY Play is an activity pursued for pleasure. The daily withdrawal of people into the mass media in their after hours is a matter of subjectivity. The effect of mass communication is not escapism nor seducing the masses. Rather it is seen as anti-anxiety producing, and are regarded as communication-pleasure. 12) MODELING BEHAVIOUR THEORY Behaviors which are modeled from media experiences can become habitual if found useful and/or if they are reinforced in the environment. This is not about violent or criminal behavior. 13) STALAGMITE THEORIES These theories suggest that mediated experiences induce long term effects that are very difficult to measure. The effects are like stalagmite drippings building up over time. Meaning Theory and the Cultivation Theory are two of the most significant Stalagmite theories. MEANING THEORY Media experiences mould meanings by putting things in a particular framework. Does "NYPD Blue" depict the real world
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of New York City police detectives? Questions like this are coming from a Meaning Theory focus on media. CULTIVATION THEORY George Gerbner tried to determine the influence of television on viewers" ideas of the environment they lived in. He found that dominance of TV created a common view of the world and that it homogenized different cultures. TV portrayed the society as a bad place to live in leading to people becoming distrustful of the world. Over time, particular symbols, images, messages, meanings become dominant and are absorbed as the truth. Cultural stereotypes, ways of assessing value and hierarchies are established. Figure 2.4

Source : From the Internet at www.colorado.edu/.../Theory/ cultivation/sld001.htm 14) Diffusion of innovations theory Pioneered in 1943 by Bryce Ryan and Neil Gross of Iowa State University this theory traces the process by which a new idea or practice is communicated through certain channels over time among members of a social system. The model describes the factors that influence people's thoughts and actions and the process of adopting a new technology or idea. 15) Social learning theory
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Formulated by Albert Bandura at Stanford University, this specifies that mass-media messages give audience members an opportunity to identify with attractive characters that demonstrate behavior, engage emotions, and allow mental rehearsal and modeling of new behavior. The behavior of models in the mass media also offers vicarious reinforcement to motivate audience members' adoption of the behavior. Baran and Davis (2000) classify mass communication theories into three broad categories: 1. microscopic theories that focus on the everyday life of people who process information - for example, uses and gratifications, active audience theory, and reception studies; 2. middle range theories that support the limited effects perspective of the media - for example, information flow theory, diffusion theory, and 3. macroscopic theories that are concerned with media's impact on culture and society - for example, cultural studies theory. Theories of mass communication have always focused on the "cause and effects" notion, i.e. the effects of the media and the process leading to those effects, on the audience's mind. Harold Lasswell and Berelson have succinctly expressed this idea. Lasswell's essential question is timeless (1949): "Who says what in what channel to whom with what effects?" Berelson said: "Some kinds of communication, on some kinds of issues, brought to the attention of some kinds of people, under some kinds of conditions, have some kinds of effects." (1949). Figure 2.5

Wilbur Schramm stated: "In fact, it is misleading to think of the communication process as starting somewhere and ending somewhere. It is really endless. We are little switchboard centers handling and rerouting the great endless current of
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information.... " (Schramm W.1954) quoted in McQuail & Windahl (1981)

16) The Osgood and Schramm circular model emphasizes the circular nature of communication. The participants swap between the roles of source/encoder and receiver/decoder. Figure 2.6

17) Gerbner's General Model Gerbner's General Model also emphasizes the dynamic nature of human communication.

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Figure 2.7

18) the Shannon-Weaver Model. Shannon and Weaver produced a general model of communication known after them as the ShannonWeaver Model. It involved breaking down an information system into subsystems so as to evaluate the efficiency of various communication channels and codes. They propose that all communication must include six elements: Source Encoder Channel Message Decoder Receiver

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This model is often referred to as an " information model" of communication. A drawback is that the model looks at communication as a one-way process. That is remedied by the addition of the feedback loop. Noise indicates those factors that disturb or otherwise influence messages as they are being transmitted 19) Berlo's S-M-C-R Model Berlo"s SMCR (SOURCE, MESSAGE, CHANNEL, and RECEIVER) model focuses on the individual characteristics of communication and stresses the role of the relationship between the source and the receiver as an important variable in the communication process. The more highly developed the communication skills of the source and the receiver, the more effectively the message will be encoded and decoded. Berlo's model represents a communication process that occurs as a SOURCE drafts messages based on one's communication skills, attitudes, knowledge, and social and cultural system. These MESSAGES are transmitted along CHANNELS, which can include sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste. A RECEIVER interprets messages based on the individual's communication skills, attitudes, knowledge, and social and cultural system. The limitations of the model are its lack of feedback

Terms used in the chapter: Mass-media: It is a collective phrase that represents not only the press, cinema, radio, television and internet, but also to some extent, books magazines, pamphlets , direct mail literature, posters, folk media, and natural communication methods such as rumours, education and preaching. It is so termed because its reach extends to vast heterogeneous populations. Generally the mass media employ technological means to communicate to the masses. They are
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founded on the idea of mass production and distribution. Wiebe defined mass media as those readily available to the general public. Selective attention: The media are full of competing messages. The process of screening vast amount of information in which one has no interest through mental filters is called selective attention, for example, an adult will be more tuned to listening to the news while a child would rather watch a cartoon show. Selective perception: This is the tendency to interpret communication messages in terms of one"s existing attitudes. People of distinct psychological character same media content in different ways. This depends on factors such as age, values, family, opinions etc. Selective perception is influenced by social relationships. Selective retention: The ability of an individual to retain certain messages in his mind while ignoring others is called selective retention. This is influenced by various psychological and physiological factors such as choice, values, culture, emotions etc. Selective exposure: Some individuals are exposed to certain media effects/messages while some are not. This screening aspect depends on many factors such as reach of media, accessibility, age, cultural acceptability, taboos, etc. Opinion leaders/change agents: The opinions of people in a group are influenced by what they hear from "opinion leaders". An individual who is a member of a group manifests certain characteristics in his thinking and behaviour that contribute to the formation of "public opinion". The opinion of the leader is based on rational thinking due to education and experience. They weigh the pros and cons of the information they receive and then give their judgement on it. Encoder: In the process of communication, the sender or source of the message is referred to as the encoder. Decoder: The person receiving the message and decodes it is referred to as the decoder.
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Feedback: Feedback, a term form cybernetics, the study of messages. It refers to an inquiry, response or experiment. Feedback can be positive (when the required result is achieved) or negative; instantaneous(when the response is immediate) or delayed. Feedback is used to gauge the effectivenss of a particular message put forth or situation that has taken place. Noise: In all communication, there is a sender, a message/communication and a receiver. The meaning of a message is greatly dependent on the culture in which it is transmitted. The sender encodes a message, the receiver decodes it. Between the sender, the message and receiver, noise gets in the way and complicates the process. A noiseless communication does not exist. There always is some kind of noise entering the communication. Noise can be physical noise for example static or psychological i.e. when culture, taboos or values come into play to disrupt the normal transmission process of communication. Misunderstanding of a particular message i.e. distortion of meaning is a form of noise, example, the game of Chinese Whisper"a person starts off with a particular message and the original message may be distorted by the time it comes to the final player

Chapter 3: Uses and Effects of mass media

Chapter 2 focused on the various theories of communication and the effects that the tools of media have on the audiences. This chapter will focus on the several types of communication classified on the basis of the social group in which it takes place and upon the technical tools used for its facilitation. The various types are: Intrapersonal Communication Intrapersonal communication is one-way communication. Individual contemplation, internal reflection, prayers, etc. are types of intrapersonal communication. This type can also be termed as a form of internal persuasion. There are two types of
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messages, nonverbal and verbal. Examples of nonverbal communication are facial expressions, posture, gestures, tone of voice, touching, spacing and systematic use of time. Verbal communication can be divided into three disciplines; syntactics, semantics, and pragmatics. In the persuasion context, one person is attempting to induce change in the belief, attitude, or behavior in one other person. For example: Jane persuading her sister Sarah to lend her pearls for Janes school party. In the persuasion context, there are various theories that explain internal communication Balance Theory This theory advocated by Fritz Heider and Theodore Newcomb in 1946 states that when tensions arise between or inside people, they attempt to reduce these tensions through self-persuasion or trying to persuade others. Balance theory proposes that there are three ways in which a person can feel balance. First the source and receiver can both dislike as well as like each other, so they experience comfort and balance. Second, the source and receiver can have a positive attitude toward an object or idea and display positive feelings toward one another, therefore experiencing comfort and balance. Third, the source and the receiver can disagree about an idea or object and also dislike each other, therefore experiencing comfort because they know that they disagree about the values of certain objects or ideas. Example: Mary likes to do things in a planned, orderly manner and Joe does not like orderliness in everything. Yet Mary likes Adam, and values their relationship therefore this system is now in imbalance. If Mary would change her attitude about orderliness in everything, this system would be in balance. Cognitive Dissonance Theory This theory propagated by Leon Festinger in 1962 says that human beings often have conflicting beliefs with actions they take, or other beliefs they have. This dissonance creates a tension and tension reduction is automatically sought by changing our evaluations by some degree. Cognitive Dissonance is when you have two good choices and you make your decision then you find yourself unsure or in doubt about the choice you made. The theory of Cognitive Dissonance implies that when there is tension
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we change a belief or an action. Many times selective exposure is used which prevents dissonance. This theory also implies that we experience more dissonance when the issue is more important, when we put off a decision and the decision is permanent. Example: When marketers want to persuade their audience to buy a product they must convince them that this is a good action and if their beliefs do not match this action, they must persuade them to change their beliefs. For instance if a health drink is introduced in the market, and some consumers feel that it is really not essential that they switch over to the new product from their usual cereal, the advertisers will have to focus on the fact the health drink contains health benefits such as cholesterol fighting, fat reducing ingredients that their usual cereal lacks. Information Manipulation Theory (IMT) Theorist Steve A. McCornack propounded this theory in 1992. This states that a speaker purposefully and covertly violates one of the conversational maxims of quantity, quality, relation and manner with the intention of deceiving his/her listener. Example: X has an important school project due Wednesday. His professor does not accept late papers. Monday night he went to the soccer match and didn't start on the paper. Tuesday night he browsed the net for information related to the project and managed to almost finish the project. Wednesday morning, X overslept and arrived only after class was over. He goes to see his professor immediately after. How will he answer his professor on why he wasn't in class to turn in his paper? Quantity: "I am sorry professor. I overslept." Quality: "Our power got cut and my alarm didn't go off." Relation: "I've had a really bad week. I had a fight with my roommate, I forgot to pay the electricity bill, the electricity was turned off and my boss has threatened to fire me if Im late again." Manner: "I badly need to score well in this project. My paper was already finished, I just overslept". The Inoculation Theory (1961) by William McGuire states that inoculation is used to describe the attribution of greater resistance to individuals or the process of supplying information to
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receivers before the communication process takes place in the hope that the information would make the receiver more resistant. This theory stresses on the importance of the nature of the presentation of the message. One method involves passive reading in which receivers read the defensive material. Another method is to read the material and underline the passages relating to the arguments presented in the defense. Next, experimenters supply an outline where the defensive material is to be written out. The last method is to write out the arguments without any help. Example: McGuires basic method included constructing a persuasive message attacking a cultural truism such as, An apple a day, keeps the doctor away. This message would contain statements like eating too many apples can cause digestive problems. Prior to this message, material would be introduced that should strengthen the belief in the truism. Rank's Model of Persuasion, 1976 (Theorist: Hugh Rank) states that persuaders use two major strategies to achieve their goals. These strategies are nicely set into two main schemas known as (1) intensify, and (2) downplay. The persuader will do this in one of four methods. 1) Intensify their own strong points. 2) Intensify the weak points of the opposition. 3) Downplay their own weak points. 4) Downplay the strong points of the opposition. Example: While arguing about their favorite movies, Damien continues to insist to Joey that the Terminator movies were much better than the Matrix movies. Rank's Model contends that Damien will use one of four main strategies to argue his point to Joey. He will either: 1) Stress the great performances that were given by Terminator lead actor Arnold Schwarzeneger, while pointing out the acclaim that he received for the movies, OR 2) Stress what he believed was poor acting by Matrix lead actor Keanu Reeves, OR 3) Downplay the weak points of the Terminator movies, OR 4) Downplay the terrific performance by the Matrix actors.
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Interpersonal Communication is an interactional process between two people, either face-to-face or through mediated forms. It is, in other words, a dialogue or conversation that is personal, direct and intimate. A lot depends on the relationship between the two individuals, their equality of status, the sociocultural environment in which the exchange takes place etc. When a mechanical device mediates in an interpersonal exchange, it is termed interpersonal mediated communication. Feedback is instantaneous and easy to measure. The following important aspects are stressed on: Relational (Qualitative) Communication in which the roles of sender and receiver are shared by two people simultaneously in order to create meaning. Situational (Contextual) Communication that occurs between two people in a specific context. Quantitative Dyadic interactions, including impersonal communication. Functional (Strategic) Communication for the purpose of achieving interpersonal goals. Group Communication is an interactional process that occurs among three or more people interacting in an attempt to achieve commonly recognized goals either face-to-face or through mediated forms. The larger the group, the less intimate and personal is the possibility of exchange. Feedback is the key word here. Feedback is not instantaneous and is difficult to measure. Groupthink is an important aspect in group communication. This occurs when a homogenous highly cohesive group is so concerned with maintaining unanimity that they fail to evaluate all their alternatives. Groupthink members see themselves as part of an in-group working against an outgroup opposed to their goals. Groups engaged in groupthink tend to make faulty decisions when compared to the decisions that could have been reached using a fair, open, and rational decision-making process. Group thinking groups tend to: 1- fail to adequately determine their objectives and alternatives, 2- fail to adequately assess the risks associated with the group's decision, 3- fail to cycle through discarded alternatives to reexamine their
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worth after a majority of the group discarded the alternative, 4- not seek expert advice, 5- select and use only information that supports their position and conclusions, and does not make contingency plans in case their decision and resulting actions fail. Group leaders can prevent groupthink by: 1- encouraging members to raise objections and concerns; 2- refraining from stating their preferences at the onset of the group's activities; 3- allowing the group to be independently evaluated by a separate group with a different leader; 4- splitting the group into sub-groups, each with different chairpersons, to separately generate alternatives, then bringing the sub-groups together to hammer out differences; 5- allowing group members to get feedback on the group's decisions from their own constituents; 6- seeking input from experts outside the group; 7- assigning one or more members to play the role of the devil's advocate; 8- requiring the group to develop multiple scenarios of events upon which they are acting, and contingencies for each scenario; and 9- calling a meeting after a decision consensus is reached in which all group members are expected to critically review the decision before final approval is given. Mass Communication Mass Communication represents the creation and sending of a homogeneous message to a large heterogeneous audience through the media. Mass communication studies the uses and effects of the media by many as opposed to the study of human interaction as in other communication contexts. Group communication has now been extended by the tools of mass communication: the press, radio, television, video and cinema. A lot of discussion has been generated on the power of the mass media (termed by Daniel Learner as mobility multipliers and by Schramm as magic multipliers). A mass media, according to Schramm, is essentially a working group organized around some device for circulating the same message, at about the same time to large numbers of people. Mass media are founded on the idea of mass production and mass distribution.
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Functions of The Mass Media The following are the basic functions performed by the mass media: 1- Information: Surveillance of the environment relates to news about the happenings in society. The mass media carry out this function by keeping us informed about the latest events in and around the world. 2- Entertainment: Mass media help us relax with family and friends and pass time. They also fulfill our psychological and social needs. 3- Symbolic Function: Mass media provide a shared symbolic environment. George Gerbner sees television as the central symbol of American culture. 4- Development: The mass media in developing countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America perform the function of facilitators of development communication focusing on the socio-economic needs of the backward sections of society. 5- Advertising: This is a commercial function that helps keep the economic status of a country healthy. At the same time it would be suicidal to let this function dominate over the other functions of the mass media. Effects The word effects connotes different meanings for different people. For e.g. a sociologist talks about social effects. A psychologist has psychological effects in mind while employing the term; an anthropologist - cultural effects, the advertiser - the market effects and so on. Bernard Berelson arrived at the conclusion that some kinds of communication on some kinds of issues, brought to the attention of some kinds of people under some kind of conditions have some kinds of effects.

Theories Of Media Effects The Medium Not the Message Marshall McLuhan said The medium is the message. No
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matter what the contents of the programmes, he argued that the audiences will watch televisionit commands their attention as no other medium has. Mass Communications are neither good nor bad, but rather mystical devices that possess powers to change the way humans lead their lives. Reinforcement McLuhans theory did not find total support. Joseph Klapper and other theorists believed in the reinforcement function of mass media. Only after reinforcing existing values and attitudes can programmes of the media be popular with the majority of social groups interested in perpetuating their own traditions and status. Narcosis Lazarsfeld and Merton held that the mass media could not be relied upon to work for changes, even minor ones, in the social structure. They perceived in mass communication a narcotising dysfunction that distracts and prevents audiences from facing real problems. Exposure to a flood of information serve to narcotize rather than energize the average audience.. This theory is now outdated as the media today have a galvanizing effect in bringing about many revolutionary changes example, bringing about an end to the Vietnam War, bringing about Nixons exit through Watergate exposure etc. Catharsis Seymour Feshbach, the main exponent of this theory, argued that the media may have a cathartic effect on the audiences and purges them of anti-social or unfulfilled desires and frustrations. A study was conducted on a group of college students. They were subject to savage insults and criticisms by experimenters. A portion of the group was shown an aggressive film of a brutal boxing match, another portion was shown a dull control film. It was found that those students who had seen the aggressive film felt less hostile to their experimenters than those who had seen the control film. But in a parallel study conducted by Berkovitz, it was found that the aggressive film was responsible for the aggressive response of the students. Other experiments have shown that children are likely to imitate violence in films.
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Manipulation The manipulation theory by Ernst Van Haag is an extreme view that states that mass communications are demeaning, depersonalizing instruments of manipulation. But it is to be noted that social and economic circumstances and not mass media alone foster such hedonism. Windows On The World Edward Shils and David M. White are of the view that mass media constitute windows on the world dealing in new and popular culture that bring more of the good to more people than ever before in history. But White talks about the gate-keeper aspect of the editor who sees to it that only those events which he believes to be true should reach the audience. Corruptive Frederick Wertham also holds an extreme view that the content of the media is corruptive and inculcates materialism and antisocial behaviour towards others. Receiver Factors Several factors determine media influence. The role played by primary, secondary and reference groups and by public opinion leaders are important. Receiver factors are related intimately to every aspect of the personality of the audience and must not be considered in isolation. The main receiver factors are attitudes, beliefs, opinions, interests, motivation and the manner of processing, retaining and rejecting of information.

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CHAPTER 4: Communication skills

Chapter 4 and 5 focus on the communication skills needed for presenting news through the media with special reference to reporting and editing for press journalism.

CHAPTER 5: Journalistic Writing

Good journalism has always been associated with competent writing and competent writing has always required an easy command of correct language and style. The style of a writer is an involuntary and intimate expression of his personality. The writer should match the mood of the audience. Style must be most unobtrusive. There are many ground rules for good writing. For example, good writing follows the ABCD principle: Accuracy, Brevity, Conciseness and Directness. A careful writer must remember the distinction between denotation (direct meaning) and connotation (suggested meaning). The use of active voice should be avoided as it leads to brevity. The use of prepositions leads to the danger of circumlocution. The principle of innate selection and control of words most appropriate to the context must be followed. Today's Style Newspaper style in recent years has moved increasingly in the direction of uncluttered writing. Simple, direct sentences are desired. Complex and compound sentences may provide the best vehicle for thought under certain circumstances, but also increase the probability of ambiguity. The desire for economy in words has produced tight, swiftly paced writing that has proved to be a boon to newspaper reading. Loose writing is inefficient writing that leads to wasting of words. Tight writing is characterized by the absence of 'breaks' (commas etc.) in the flow of simple sentences. But tightening that leads to omitting should not be overdone.
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Today's journalistic style has the following characteristics: Compact, usually short sentences, every word selected and placed for maximum effect. Short, terse paragraphs, each complete in itself and capable of being removed without destroying the sense of the story. Conciseness, directness and simplicity through elimination of unnecessary words and phrases Factualness without editorial opinions and dogmatic expressions 'Strong' verbs and nouns preferred over hackneyed words and expressions Observance of grammatical and word usage rules. Conciseness The objective of effective journalistic writing should be to avoid cumbersomeness without becoming repetitive. Relaxing the rule that all of the 5 W's and H (Who, Why, What, Where, When and How) must be included in the first paragraph of the news story leads to uncluttered writing. Superfluous Words The articles the, a and an can be eliminated, as Weak: The Harvard students who heard the lecture... Better: Harvard students who heard the lectur... The sentences may be shortened and made more forceful by making the verbs more direct, as: Weak: The group arrived at a decision. Better: The group decided. Weak: They did away with the old building. Better: They razed the old building. In their Art of Editing (MacMillan, 1972) Floyd Baskette and Jack Sissors list 48 'pet' circumlocutions that can be reduced to save 100 words. Some of them are listed below: A good part (much) A little less than (almost) Accidentally stumbled (stumbled) Disclosed for the first time (disclosed) Jewish Rabbi (Rabbi) Due to the fact that (because) Easter Sunday (Easter)
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Entered a bid of (bid) Grand total (total) In the immediate vicinity (near) etc. It is not necessary to include the state with the names of large cities, or to mention the state with the name of the city in the same state as the place where the newspaper is published. Weak: She lives in Los Angeles, California Better: She lives in Los Angeles. But: Vague: He lives in Catskill. Clear: He lives in Catskill, Pennsylvania Don't waste words in giving dates, as: Weak: The meeting will be held at 12 o' clock noon. Better: The meeting will be held at noon. Superfluous Phrases Weak: The meeting was held for the purpose of voting for the Chairman. Better: The meeting was held to vote for the Chairman. Weak: The colour of the dress was red Better: The dress was red. Weak: A baby with brown eyes. Better: A brown-eyed baby Superfluous Clauses: Weak: All women who are interested should come. Better: All interested women should come. Weak: John Donne, who is the President of the Engineer's club, will be there. Better: John Donne, President of the Engineer's club will be there. Redundancy:

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The following is a short list of redundant words commonly used: 1- assemble together 2- carbon copy 3- each and every 4- necessary requirement 5- first and foremost 6- other alternative 7- totally necessary 8- small in size 9- postpone until later 10- rules and regulations etc Simplicity: This is obtained by avoiding 'elegant' words: 1- About is better than with reference to 2- agreement is better than concordance 3- burned is better than destroyed by fire 4- if is better than in the event of 5- meeting is better than rendezvous and so on. Active and Passive Voice: The active voice is usually more emphatic than passive voice. However, sometimes the later is preferred to the former: e.g: Henry Stroke has been appointed chairman of the Republican campaign committee. In other cases, the active voice is preferable: e.g.: Weak: The accident was witnessed by ten people Better: Ten people witnessed the accident. Figures Of Speech: The following are examples of age-old figures of speech that should be avoided as they are likely to be misused and mark their user as callow. 1- alike as peas in a pod 2- nipped in the bud 3- hail of bullets 4- watery grave 5- white as a sheet and so on Journalese:
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Newspapers have exhausted the effectiveness of a number of words through indiscriminate repetition. Such words as follows should be avoided: 1- hot seat 2- brutally murdered 3- man hunt 4- crime wave 5- infuriated mob 6- war clouds 7- whirlwind tour 8- quiz 9- grilled by the police 10- news leaked out and so on

Gobbledygook: Pretentious phrasing or gobbledygook scares the reader away from the story, for e.g. National Association for Advancement of Gay People's Rights attorneys told the Supreme Court today that overt public resistance is insufficient cause to nullify federal court desegregation orders. Readability Formulas Shortly after World War II, the two major press associations and several magazines and newspapers experimented with readability formulas that stressed brevity. The Associated Press reduced its average lead sentence length from 27 to 23 words. The United Press simplified its writing style to be suitable for readers with 11.7 years of education, whereas formerly it was writing for readers who had gone to school 16.7 years. Leads/Intros A lead is the first paragraph or introduction of a news story that gives the summary of the news to follow. Different kinds of leads can be used to make the news story readable and interesting. Some of the different kinds of leads are: 1- The 5 W's and one H: As already mentioned earlier in the chapter, the who, why, what, where, when and how of the news
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need not be mentioned all together. A judicious use of the necessary W's and H makes this kind of lead interesting. 2- The Quotation Lead: In reporting speeches, public statements, etc. it is always better to typify the feature in the reporter's own words rather than by a direct quotation, e.g. : Weak: "A sharp decline in mortality rates, medical progress and greater economic prosperity have enabled welfare agencies to solve most of their problems except that of the emotionally disturbed child", Horace V. Updike, Council of Social Welfare director said yesterday. Better: "The emotionally disturbed child is the 'No. 1 problem' facing welfare agencies today, Horace V. Updike, Council Of Welfare director, said yesterday." 3- The Question Lead: Ordinarily a reporter should answer, not ask questions in his news stories. To do otherwise merely delays telling the news, as in the case of a lead beginning, "What causes emotional apathy?" followed by a summary of a new idea advanced by some authority on the subject. 4- The Staccato Lead: When the time element is to be emphasized, this lead is used. It consists of a series of phrases, punctuated either by periods or dashes and usually is a form of descriptive lead. E.g.: Almost thirty years ago-back in 1973-in a different era-in a different life, after years of happiness in her simple home, the light went out of Mrs X's life -she became stone blind. Torturous, long years passed and suddenly her prayers were answered - Mrs X could see. 5- The Explosive Lead: Similar to the Staccato lead but consisting of grammatically complete sentences, the explosive lead is usually used for feature articles. 6- The Dialogue Lead: Minor court stories with strong human interest can be handled effectively by this kind of lead. The lead consists of the dialogue between two people and then followed by a summary or play-by-play account of the event. 7- The Cartridge Lead: When war is declared or ends, when a
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famous personality dies or on similar important occasions, it is customary to tell the gist of the news in the fewest possible words. E.g. Mayor Charles Canterbury is dead. This style should not be frequently used but reserved for special occasions. 8- The Punch Lead: Similar to the Cartridge lead but not so abrupt or definite is the Punch lead. 9- The Descriptive Lead: A graphic description of a person, place or object to give the tone or feeling necessary for proper understanding and appreciation. The best descriptive leads are written by eyewitnesses. 10- The Parody Lead: Popular songs, titles of best-sellers, newly coined phrases etc. may be used while still fresh, usually in parodied form to brighten an occasional news story lead.

CHAPTER 6: Changes in the Social and Economic Scenario

In today's modern democratic society, it is a common belief that the freedom enjoyed by the media is an essential prerequisite. Yet, at the same time, it is also believed that the media are turning politics into a trivial entertainment for couch potatoes. Yet the mass media was created for citizens of a democracy to decide the important issues of the day amongst themselves through public debate, including in print. In the late-eighteenth centuries, this participative form of media freedom was put into practice. The exercise of the fundamental right of the freedom of expression was made possible by the widespread ownership of cheap wooden printing presses. Despite its libertarian claims, media freedom was the monopoly in the hands of a few rich men, who could produce only a limited number of expensive copies of publication. However, the industrialization of printing allowed printed material to become cheap enough for almost everyone to purchase. When the new electronic media were introduced, information production spiraled and was made available free to their audiences. But now
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the news content was determined by the management hierarchical business institutions or the State. The role of the media now came under the magnifying glass, with different functions being attributed to it by different people. For some, the interests of the audience were best served by the media being objective and truthful in its reporting. For others, the media had to serve the future interests of the people by disseminating revolutionary ideas. But there was one common thing - the complete passivity of the audience. Although almost everyone could receive the output of the media, most people weren't able to use the media to express their own views. Over the past few years, the introduction of new information technologies has intensified the centralization of the media. The spread of new technologies has also encouraged the growth of community media such as radio stations, cable television channels and e-mail, having mass distribution potentiality. For example, in cyberspace, a single global network or a web is being spun out of a network of contributors and bulletin boards. The community media are used by all sections of society as a means of free expression. Karl Deutsch, in his "Social Mobilization and Political Participation", developed the concept of social mobilization, the process whereby people become uprooted from their traditions and become available for new patterns of communication and behavior. According to him, the process of modernization should be accompanied by an increase of exposure to mass media. Shaun Moores in his 'Media and Everyday Life in Modern Society' talks about the position that television, radio or other electronic media like telephones and computers have come to occupy in people's day-to-day lives and social relationships. He discusses how these communication and information technologies have helped construct new arrangements of time, space and place in a culture with globalizing tendencies, and the types of identity, experience and interaction the electronic media make available to their different audiences or users. Combining theory with empirical research, he discusses topics such as the meanings of satellite dishes, the formation of imagined communities and the presentation of self in virtual realities. Communication and Development: Socio-Economic Impacts of Media on the Traditional Structures of Developing Countries
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Scholars have made interesting efforts to fashion meaningful theories about the role of mass mediated communication in the national development process. Most studies indicate relationships among factors like economics, religion, press freedom etc. Daniel Learner's study entitled 'The Passing Of Traditional Society' noted high correlation among four factors: urbanization, literacy, media participation and political participation. Deutsch pointed out a correlation between mass communication of a country and its national spirit and action. One school of thought attributed to the Western media an essential role in overcoming undemocratic and unjust social structures, while another school looked upon it as the essential agent of destruction of indigenous cultures and identities. Similar discussions about the socio-economic impacts of information technologies (ITs) on society, independent of the discussion concerning the developing countries, have led to the argument on one hand that advancing technicalization of our societies puts different individuals on the same platform and blends them together; while on the other hand the opponents of this thought argue that ITs break up societies into single groups, which brings about disintegration and waning of solidarity. John T. McNelly of the University of Wisconsin has written of the lack of well-developed theories of the role of mass communication in national development., but postulates at least 4 general positions or points in the same context: 1- The Null Position: This holds that mass communication has little or nothing to do with national development. Those taking this position place emphasis on literacy and education and not on the mass media 2- Enthusiastic Position: This is usually a position held by UNESCO and other development-oriented agencies and individuals. Here the mass media has a decisive role not only in development but also establishing peace and stability. 3- Cautious Position: The 2-step flow theory (see Chapter 2 Theories of Communication) proposed by Katz and Lazarsfeld relates to this position. This position supports that mass communication is not omnipotent and a number of social and cultural factors (such as opinions of opinion leaders) serve to mediate or even nullify the impact of the mass media.
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4- Pragmatic Position: Persons accepting this position realize that there are no adequate theories to predict the impact of information flow for all types of messages in different societies, in all situations. McNelly advocates adopting the pragmatic position where the researcher seeks empirical evidence on the effects of mass communication in a culture or society. Digital Information Revolution While the mass media (the press, radio, TV) facilitate one-tomany communication processes and the interpersonal media (telex, telephone) enable one-to-one communication processes, the Internet ( an interactive network) is a many-to-many process. The question therefore is whether the experiences gained from mass and telecommunications media can be applied to interactive networks too. Hiltz & Turoff (1993) have coined the term "superconnectivity" to mean "1. The phenomenon of almost perfect transmission of communication and information throughout the human habitations of the universe, via computers. 2. The interconnections of all social and economic institutions as a result of communication via computer networks." Guglielmo Marconi's invention of wireless telegraphy led to the emergence of radio broadcasts almost 100 years ago. Since that time, there have been major advances in broadcasting including; radio, television, cable networks, the Internet, and more recent innovations. Two new "medias" that have put broadcasting onto the 'next generation' course are Interactive Television and Personalized Broadcasting. Microsoft acquired WebTV Networks, Inc. in 1997, a company that serves thousands today with their technology that integrates the television and the Internet. It consists of a set-top box and a subscription service. The service allows consumers to get access to the World Wide Web, e-mail, and other interactive experiences not normally available through the traditional cable or satellite services. Another service is the 'UltimateTV', that consists of a set-top box and modified computer keyboard along with the satellite TV service. The television then becomes a VCR, an ISP, an e-mail program, and a TV all in one service; the convergence of entertainment and information in an interactive environment.
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The wireless/mobile broadcasting medium is also experiencing explosive growth. This type of broadcasting works on the idea that a consumer can access news and information through any wireless device such as a cell phone and receive it in audio instead of text. Several General Audio Download, Mobile Audio Communications and Personalized Broadcast (PB) companies have entered the market to whet the public's appetite for information This is just the tip of the iceberg. From the initial invention of the radio to the new media technology of today, it is clear that consumer demand for personalization is driving broadcasting and media. Consumers want more choices and more control over the information they receive. The consumers of the new media can now go interactive with their TV sets. Public television is uniquely positioned to take full advantage of new digital technology to serve the needs of its viewers of all ages and ethnic backgrounds. For the past several years, public television has been an industry leader in bringing digital TV's (DTV) many new possibilities to reality. The digital transition signifies the biggest change in the TV medium since the advent of television itself. DTV technology provides a host of new opportunities for public television to provide interactive education and training programs never before possible with today's analog broadcasting standard. The Internet is viewed as the 'information utopia', the fulfillment of an ancient dream of a free information flow uninfluenced by government. But the principle of freedom must be complemented by social responsibility. Communication connects people with one another, breaks down prejudices, increases people's knowledge about one another, and supports peaceful coexistence. In all of these cases, the aim is to overcome or reduce superfluous borders. Physical access, however, is not the only issue. Another concerns the ability to use and understand the communication technology. For difficulties to be overcome, including those of time and space, accelerated development of traffic and communication infrastructures worldwide is recommended. One also has to take into account the dynamical element of identity change inherent in the communication between two cultures. Within the intercultural communication process, the communicating entities are not in the same state during and after
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the communication as they were before it. If communication weakens, erodes and blurs the participants, then it tends not towards peace, but towards aggression. >But a case of a 'reduced cues' social environment as facilitated by the computer mediated communication (CMC) has been described by Kiesler, Siegel, & McGuire as having a "democratizing" effect on organizational communication. Visual cues such as complexion and dress, as well as audio cues of accent and inflection are nonexistent in text-only discourse leading to the increase of empathy and alliance. Technology and Culture The diffusion of technologies is always accompanied by diverse cultural impacts. Many French sociologists and intellectuals have pointed out the cultural impacts of technologies. Francois Mitterand in the 1982 G7-Summit on Technology, Employment and Growth at Versailles, highlighted this factor. In the 1995 G7Summit on the Global Information Society, France again suggested that the cultural aspects of the new information technologies be given special attention. Out of the same tradition, the French President, Jacques Chirac, declared the Internet top priority matter in the beginning of 1996. In his analysis on the implications of the information superhighway on Asia, Jeffrey Goh from the Singaporean National Computer Board summed up that cultural communication tends not towards peace, but towards aggression: "The implications of Internet on heritage and culture are twofold. On the one hand, it is yet another channel by which Western culture enters the country. On the other hand, given the low cost structure of operating an internet service, it is also a way by which local culture and points of view can be shared. In this new medium developing countries do not have to take the back-seat".

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CHAPTER 9: Corporate communication

ADVERTISING AND PUBLIC RELATIONS (PR)
Corporations, like all other structures in human society, are built on ideas. Their security, growth and success depend on how sensitive the executive actions are towards changes in the social, economic and political climate. Corporate communications, which includes advertising and PR, is thus an important management tool in spurring the corporations towards a turbulence-free, profitable future. We have today moved from the we generation to the me generation. The great majority of business and industrial enterprises in the private sector have not considered, as part of their aims, any function other than increasing their profits. There has been an abdication of social responsibility by the business community, barring a few exceptions. Thus it follows that to ensure its contribution to society as a corporate citizen, to cope with competition, to harmonize the companys economic goals and the nations aspirations, there is a need for a top-level management function, facilitated by corporate communications. ADVERTISING Advertising today is a world-wide phenomenon. It is derived from the Latin word advertere meaning to turn the attention. It is defined as a paid, non-personal communication used with persuasive intent by identified sources through various media. It is a form of paid communication, different from other forms of publicity such as press releases or public relations, which are often covered by the media free of charge. Non-personal distinguishes advertising from other forms of personal/door-to-door salesmanship. The advertiser is identified as one who has a persuasive intent in trying to alter the behaviour and attitudes of people towards a product, service or idea in a way that would be beneficial to himself/herself. Advertisements are associated with the mass media including newspapers, television, radio, magazines, cinema; and also with other forms such as billboards, posters, direct mail etc. People involved in the advertising business are: 1. Advertisers 2. Advertising agencies (made up of copywriters, art directors, 47

television and radio producers, media buyers, specialists in printing etc., researchers, planners, PR experts) 3. Support organizations (specialists in cinematography; film editing; music scoring; market, product and consumer research firms etc) 4. Media (depending on the target audiences media habits, media effectiveness and reach and relative cost) and 5. Consumers Advertising can be carried out for many purposes such as building up a companys name (institutional advertising) and a particular brand (brand advertisement). Advertising reduces distribution cost by simplifying personal selling, encourages competition and fosters product quality through clear brand identification, adds value to the product, is a guide for consumers and builds up the morale of the companys sales force. ORIGIN AND GROWTH: The colourful history of advertising can be divided into six periods: 1. The ancient times: During the time when Babylon was ruled by Hamurabi, 2000 years before Christ, merchants used hired criers or barkers to impress upon the quality of their products and persuade people to buy. Other forms of communications were wall signs, directing the people towards the location of sale. 2. 5th to 8th Centuries: Referred to as the Dark Ages, this period saw a setback in advertising with the fall of the Roman Empire. Reading and writing were the prerogative of a privileged few. Commerce and trade routes were few. Whatever advertising was done was through hand executed signals or ringing of bells to attract the attention of consumers. 3. 9th to 15th Centuries: This period saw advertising flourish. Town criers in Paris developed new gimmicks such as free samples. Gutenbergs Movable Type Press revolutionized printing. This led to new mediums of advertising such as printed posters, handbills, signs, pamphlets, books and newspapers. 4. 16th and 17th Centuries: Newspapers in the form of newsletters and news books were introduced as a medium for advertising. Special advertising periodicals were introduced which undertook advertising on a regular basis. 5. 18th and 19th Centuries: Untruthful advertising flourished. People lost faith in advertisements and were cautious. This period saw the birth of window and counter displays, exhibitions and trade fairs and sandwich men (men hired to promote the product on the streets, sandwiched between posters both in front and back) 48

Illustration 1: Sandwich men (Permission for use pending) 6. 20th Century till present day: This century saw the advent of radio and television commercials in America. While radio commercials (dialogue commercials, dramatized commercials, musical commercials etc.) with their voice ads had an edge over print ads, television commercials (sponsored programmes and announcements) with colourful visual effects could beat the radio ads. Outdoor advertising media such as traveling displays, neon signs, posters, sky writing etc also gained foothold. New age advertising now includes internet scroll ads.

Illustration 2: Sample Copy, Town Talk: Emergence of Advertising in America -

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Duke University Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library (scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/.../B02/ B0268/B0268-01-72dpi.jpeg) CONSTRUCTING AN AD The formulation of the advertising message involves designing the ad copy and structuring the layout so that the products USP (unique selling proposition) may be effectively presented to the target audience. The first creative process is visualization (seeing in the minds eye). After the idea to be presented is created, the copy is thought, illustrations sketched and copy elements laid out. The final form is in the shape of some sketch work called a doodle that contains the tentative headline, theme and illustration. It is to be noted that visualization is different from layout. The former is the work of copywriters and artists concerned with the creation of the idea, whereas the later involves arranging headlines, illustrations, text matter, slogan, trademark and brand name- to deliver the idea 50

effectively. Visualization tells what and layout tells where. According to advertising executive Alex Osborne, the founder of the Creative Education Foundation in America, who, in 1939, led a team that coined the word brainstorming visualization involves 4 steps: 1. Orientation: which lets the visualizer address the advertising problem and get acquainted with the companys product, history, philosophy, policies etc. 2. Preparation: implies gathering a reservoir of information related to the advertising problem, to prepare the mind to create ideas. 3. Analysis: a refinement process wherein the collected information is thoroughly examined and those ideas which are irrelevant to the problem are done away with. 4. Ideation: process of piling up various alternatives as to work towards a solution to the problem. 5. Incubation: Sleeping on the idea or the hatching of ideas. Some term this the a-ha stage, as something unique is generated and the solution is born. 6. Synthesis: where various ideas relating to headlines, subheadlines, text matter, illustration, slogan, trade mark and logo type are synthesized as a single meaningful whole. 7. Verification: is the evaluation process, where the idea is tested by a panel of experts to judge its real worth and necessary changes for improvement can be implemented. The Ad Copy Copy is the soul of an ad. It refers to all the written and spoken matter in an ad expressed in words, sentences and figures. A good copy is like a well thought out plan for a building. A good copy is clear, brief, apt, personal and honest. The copywriter should take into consideration the following questions: 1. what am I advertising? 2. to whom am I advertising? 3. how can I convey the best message to the target audience? 4. where and how is the product sold? 5. when is the product purchased and used? 6. what legal implications are involved? TYPES OF AD COPY Prof. H.K Nixon, in his Principles of Advertising states that an effective ad copy is one that arrests, informs, impresses 51

and impels the reader. There are innumerable types of copy, such as reason why copy(wherein the ad offers reasons as to why the consumer should purchase the product or service and promotes the product by magnifying its superiority), institutional copy(where the name of the business house or the advertiser and not the product or service is sold, and the philosophy, ideology and policies of the organization or seller are highlighted to increase goodwill), human interest copy(which appeals to emotions- humour, fear, predicament etc- rather than the intellect), educational/teaser copy(in case of a product/service introduction) etc. STRUCTURE AND LAYOUT A typical ad contains the following: 1. Copy headline: This stands out by the size or style of type in which it is set, the prominence of its location or the white space surrounding it. It tells the gist of the copy (selling message) in a few words. It attracts the readers attention by being provocative, informative, selective etc. 2. Copy sub headline: These expand on the main headline to carry the readers interest further into the copy. 3. Slogans: This is a brief, unchanging word or phrase used by the advertiser regularly to impress upon the consumer, the basic idea about the product or service. It increases the recall value of the ad and sometimes even replaces the headline. 4. Body Copy: This is the text that amplifies the ideas in the headline. 5. Copy illustration: maybe a drawing, photograph, painting or diagram used to garner attention and bring about a behaviour change in the consumer. This is also called art work. The advent of computer graphics has enabled this activity to be more creative. 6. Identification marks: includes trade name, trademark, logo etc. The layout of an ad may be either crude or carefully developed. Depending on the extent of refinement, they are classified into thumbnails, roughs and comprehensives. A good layout usually adheres to the principles of balance, rhythm, emphasis, proportion, unity and simplicity. EFFECTS OF ADVERTISING Advertising has a direct as well as indirect effect on the socioeconomic scenario of a country. It touches and influences all irrespective of age, sex, class, creed, colour, religion, political 52

ideology etc. Advertising has often been accused of being unnecessary, wasteful, untruthful and misleading and also that it often creates monopolies and increases the price of products. Advertising has effects on production costs, distribution costs and consumer prices. The cost of advertising is passed on to the consumer, but proper use can directly affect unit sales and thus bring down the cost of production, distribution and the product itself. Advertising is a marketing tool that assists producers in informing maximum number of people cheaply and quickly about his/her product. Advertising often suffers from wrong targeting (giving the advertising message to a market segment which is not interested in the product), wrong media selections, ill-timed advertising, lack of policy co-ordination and sub-standard quality of communication. Advertising is as much a social phenomenon as it is an economic one. It creates utility value. In the modern marketing system, consumer is the king. Todays consumer is wellinformed and choosy and not the traditional kind of purchaser who is easily persuaded to buy what is not of utility value to him. The consumer makes sure he/she gets his/her moneys worth. Advertising thus is the best guide for wise decisionmaking. Ironically, just as the consumer is king, he is also the slave of the market. What is of use to one is not necessarily so for the other. Consumer welfare and consumer protection laws (selfregulation and government regulation) have thus come into existence to shield the consumer who is often not given enough attention. Advertising also influences the standard of living of the society as it indirectly affects the consumers tendency to consume by increasing their desire to work hard, earn more and meet their objectives. Ethics in advertising is a major topic of discussion in any talk about advertising. What is the extent to which an advertiser should be allowed to go to promote his/her productcan advertising be at the cost of ignoring the cultural, ethnic, social and aesthetic limits that a society sets for itself? Should untruthful and misleading information about a particular product or service be allowed just because it is the manufacturers prerogative to sell his/her product the best way he/she can? These questions have been addressed time and again when bad ads ruffle a few feathers. Undue sexism, suggestive words, unwarranted use of women models to promote products 53

totally unconnected with women, ignoring social taboos, promoting products whose excessive use is injurious to ones health (cigarettes, alcohol) etc are elements that modern ads suffer from today. Thus a right mix of self regulation and government regulation is the need of the day. PUBLIC RELATIONS (PR) The first use of the phrase public relations was by President Thomas Jefferson in 1807. While drafting his Seventh Address to the Congress, he replaced the words state of thought with public relations. Efforts to communicate and influence peoples behaviour in the process can be traced back to early civilizations. Public Relations were in use much earlier by people who did not know they were practicing it. Greek and Roman theorists studied the importance of public will. The Romans gave birth to the expression Vox Populi, Vox Dei i.e. the voice of the people is the voice of God. Machiavelli held the belief that people must either be caressed or annihilated. Archaeologists found a farm bulletin in Iraq dating back to the 1800s informing farmers how to sow and irrigate and harvest their crops. The very popular Queen Elizabeth I of England controlled the country for 45 years and elevated it to a first rate power. Hers was a first class example of a successful PR campaign. PR began in America in the 16th century when Sir Walter Raleigh persuaded people from various parts of America to settle in rural Virginia. The first organized attempt at PR was for winning public opinion for the American Revolution. In 1900, the first PR consultancy known as Publicity Bureau was formed in Boston. In 1915, Ivy Lee made his declaration on the truthful recording of facts on behalf of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company for handling rail-road accidents. With a tremendous growth of publicity, propaganda and PR in the following period, businesses realized the need for an effective PR system to explain their contributions to the economy. The Second World War saw the armed forces taking interest in PR. PR Defined The word public refers to any group of people who share a common interest. Some publics such as employees of an organization are called internal public, and those who buy the product or the services offered by the company are the external public. Relations is the mutual understanding born out of the sharing of common interests. Thus the combination of public and 54

relations leads to the management function called Public Relations. Peter Biddlecombe in his International Public Relations Encyclopedia published by Grant Helm gives definitions coined by many experts in the field. One such is : Frank Jefkins ,in his book Public Relations for Marketing Management (Studies in Marketing Management) - PR means what it says - relations with the public. It is practically a self-defining term. It aims to create and maintain confidence. It is a system of communication to create goodwill. It produces that intangible quality or asset - goodwill, and earns credit for achievements. K.R.Balan in his Applied Public Relations and Communication defines PR as a deliberate, planned, and sustained effort to establish and maintain mutual understanding between an organization and its publics PR brings about an opinion change. The governors of this opinion change are culture, family, religion, school, economic and social class and race to name a few. People are also influenced by opinion leaders, other members of the group, or from persons outside the group. Counsellor Earl Newsom has stated the principle of public opinion as: 1. Identification principle: People will ignore an idea, opinion or point of view unless they see clearly that it affects their personal fears or desires, hopes or aspirations - your message must be stated in terms of the interest of your audience. 2. Action principle: People do not buy ideas separated from action. Unless a means of action is provided, people tend to shrug off appeals to do things 3. Principle of Familiarity and Trust: People buy ideas only from those they trust, are influenced by, or adopt only those opinions put forward by individuals, corporations or institutions in whom they have confidence. 4. Clarity principle: The situation must be clear to the people, not confusing. To communicate, one must employ words, symbols, or stereotypes that the receiver understands and comprehends. PR is also human relations. It requires the skills of empathy, persuasion, dialogue and personal contact. A good Public Relations exercise guarantees the following: 1. Favourable image 2. Product and service promotion 3. Goodwill of 55

employees//stockholders/suppliers/government/industry/custom ers 4. Solution to labour problems 5. Crossing hurdles of misconceptions and prejudices 6. garnering the best personnel 7. educating the public about the product/service 8. formulation of policies and guidelines 9. directing course of change 10. meeting crisis situations An example of good and bad public relations may be best described through actual events that happened to two United States Presidents, William Taft and Bill Clinton. When the word got out of the Clinton-Lewinski affair, and a federal investigation was launched, Clinton publicly denied ever having any relationship with her. When the evidence showed the contrary, he reluctantly admitted his error, but the damage had been done. His popularity nation sunk to the lowest level of any U.S. President in history. It still remains low. On the other hand President William Howard Taft, a strong businessman and president, was publicly accused of fathering a child out of wedlock. In his era, 1909-1915, such an act was one of the most immoral in polite society. Taft publicly admitted that he had a love child. He humbly asked Americans for their forgiveness. who readily forgave him and lauded his honesty. PR is a hard-nosed operation. A PR person is not a magician who can whitewashes a dirty image in minutes. It is unfair to expect the world out of him/her. A PR person can be termed a catalyst that brings about a positive change suing various tools available to him/her. Some of these artistic tools are: News releases and backgrounders (written art); radio and TV talk shows and news (dramatic arts); presentations (visual and speaking arts); media and analyst tours (the same); Internet news (graphic art); and media relations (all the arts, including entertainment and relationship building). This process cannot be achieved through stunts, but has to be built on hard facts to win confidence. What a management defines, PR person refines. It has been said that a true PR professional raises his hat to the past but takes his coat off to the future.

Illustration 3: The PR Process: www.workinpr.com/images/industry/ whitepaper_persuasion.gif Source: www.workinpr.com/.../research/ pra_whitepaper_persuasion.asp (Permission for use pending) 56

SOME SAMPLE ADS Sample 1: Humorous Copy California Linear Devices Launches New Ad Campaign New campaign features humorous depiction of solutions to linear motion problems Carlsbad, Calif. -- Naturally, the goal of every ad campaign should be to get the company or product noticed. And our new ad campaign has not only done that, it's created attention by making the subject of linear motion fun. Source : www.calin ear.com/n ewads.ht ml (Permissi on for use pending)

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Sample 2 This is basically a good ad. The headline boldly stands out, and promises a benefit (a Deal) although to some people the Deal sounded more like the tone of an auto dealer, not a piano store. The price is prominently shown. The ad is well designed, balanced. The illustration shows a choice of two models. The copy is authoritative and honest. Heres the copy: Weve surveyed the market and we know of no other piano that can compare with the value and quality of these outstanding instruments at anywhere near the price. Thanks to Schmitts volume truckload purchasing, you can now have an affordable piano that combines beauty and elegance along with outstanding performance. Your choice of two striking decorator styles-Queen Anne Cherry or Traditional Oak-both the same price. The price, $2588 largely visible, and is qualified with a caption in fine print at the right, under the bench: Only $68 per month. The framed block of copy toward the bottom carries a run-on list of FEATURES THAT ASSURE PERFORMANCE & LONG LIFE. There are about a dozen features, such as a solid spruce soundboard, laminated hard maple bridges and a beautifully finished including matching bench. S ou rce : Ly nn e Me en a s Ad Cli nic ww w.r eta ilre por tin 58

g.c om / pu bs/ LM Sto ry. ht ml (Pe rmi ssi on for us e pe ndi ng) Sample 3: Institutional Advertising

( The above campaign was created & inserted by EGD&P in The Washington Business Journal for Sigal Construction, Washington, D.C., 1991 through '92 ) Source : www.michaelenfield.com/ sigal.gif

Sample 4: Social Service Advertising

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Source: www.avert.org/ graphics/worldaidsday.jpg

CHAPTER 10: Communication in the e-world - Issues

The famous remark of Marshall McLuhan, the linguist "The Media is the Message" could be called the foundation for any study on mass communication. But today, the media is no longer the message i.e. content. Mass communication media is becoming diverse, and so is the content. Peoples access to the media has increased manifold and so has the ability to create a new content with each access. "Mass communication" has started to shift towards "one-to-one communication," which means that communication is programmed to meet the demands of the individual. The Internet is one such essential tool for personalized mass communication. This chapter focuses on the various phases of the ongoing "paradigm shift," induced by the changes in the technological society. EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES: THEIR HISTORY The Internet and the World Wide Web (WWW) Some of the best ideas are born in the worst of times it is said. And so it was that the seeds of the Internet were sown in the ashes of World War II. After perpetuating the nuclear holocaust in Japan in 1945, the US military research concentrated on ways and means to survive a similar holocaust on themselves. In the 1960s, the problem of communicating with each other in the aftermath of a nuclear attack was taken up by Americas foremost military think-tank - the Rand Corporations Paul 60

Baran. Years of agonizing research led to the creation of the first Net called the ARPANET (ARPA stood for Advanced Research Projects Agency) - connecting 4 American research organizations: Stanford Research Institute, the University of Utah, and the University of California in Los Angeles as well as Santa Barbara. In 1971, Robert Kahn of the BBC made a public demonstration of the uses of the Net. By this time the ARPANET had grown and now connected 23 universities and government research centers around the US. E-mail was introduced and soon became ARPANETs most used facility. In 1972, the Inter Networking Working Group was set up with Vinton Cerf as its first chairman. He was later to be known as the father of the Internet. Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerf developed what eventually became the Transmission Control Protocol Internet Protocol (TCP/IP). The first microprocessor based user friendly personal computer (PC) was introduced in 1974. In 1975, ARPANETs administration was transferred to the US Department of Defense (DOD). In 1989, Tim Berners-Lee had created the World Wide Web (WWW) that would help even remote computers and desktops to access the Net. It didnt take long for the Web to find and enjoy the effects of a world wide audience. The democratic nature of the web works because its point-and-click accessibility, as well as the absence of technical jargon at most sites, has allowed the computer novices and experts alike to explore and create the Web at their own pace and on their own terms. Computers@Home, a leading Indian magazine enlists 10 reasons for being on the Internet: Communicating with people Finding people with common issues Finding information Exchanging Information and Documents Finding Support Groups Place to speak freely Education Fun and Entertainment More than just fun and games The recent global debate over the content regulation of the Internet was obviously the outcome of the number of instances that a lack of regulation has led to. Policing the Internet continues to be a controversial issue in the United States and many other countries because of a potential infringement on free speech. It is also unclear how such laws might be enforced in the free-for-all atmosphere of the Internet. 61

Internet sites differ in size according to whether it is a personal set of postings by an individual or if it is to be used as an interactive reporting and reference tool for global events. Though there has been a continuous wave of technological breakthroughs in the creative content presentation, the potential for combining graphics, text, video and sound with the various WWW protocols is still being tapped. There is a trend towards building information communities. With the ability to keep track of the number of users, interact with people via chat groups and email, the global community has made a paradigm shift from being passive readers to becoming interactive audiences. This chapter will compare the World Wide Web to other mass media such as newspaper and television and discuss the issues behind the interactive communication media and its pros and cons. Andrew L. Fry (Vice President, Director of Projects at Free Range Media, Inc) in his abstract titled Publishing in the New Mass Medium: Creating Content on the Internet talks about how Mathew Gray, an MIT student, has attempted to estimate size and growth of the Web using the World Wide Web Wanderer, an Internet automation, and has reported the following results as of early 1994: "Wow, the Web is BIG". His was an attempt to quantify file transfer as a function of traffic, web server sites and of course, number of Internet users. All three are important in defining the Internet as a mass medium. The first, traffic, is a measure of interaction; the second, number of server sites, as a measure of content and the third, number of users, representing audience. One figure commonly used to estimate the Internet user base is an audience of 20,000,000 to 30,000,000 people with a growth rate of 10% to 20% per month. The figure is derived in formulaic fashion and is the subject of debate, as is demonstrated in the copyrighted article entitled "How Big is the Internet", by Vanderbilt professors Donna L. Hoffman and Thomas P. Novak. This article can be read on-line on www.wired.com. The testimony before the US House of Representatives, Committee on Science, Space and Technology on March 23, 1993 by Vinton Cerf. estimates 100 million users in the foreseeable future. With evident phenomenal growth, it appears that everyone is jumping on to the bandwidth-wagon. The Internet possesses the unique ability to combine protocols supported by the World Wide Web project to deliver information, communication and interactivity. However the Internet is only the delivery system, just as broadcast is the delivery system for 62

television and radio, and print is the platform for newspapers and magazines. The Internets USP is its specificity of types of content available at the click of a button. Watching television is a cultural phenomenon which can only occur when a large enough proportion of the available audience shares in the viewing of a particular program. But the fund of information pouring into the Web is diluting the core audience. Broadcast programmes provide information and entertainment to an audience which is referred to as "viewership" or "listenership" and has limited interaction with content providers. It is aided by subscriptions and advertisements. So is the case of publications, where the audience is referred to as readership which interacts with content providers through letters to the editors etc. Some web sites are delivering topical editorial content through sponsorship e.g HotWIRED, (the first web site to publish materials based on the virtues of the medium that delivers it) produced by WIRED magazine. The audience interacts directly and in real time with the content and content providers. The number of hits that the site has received can be tallied and information flow can be measured. As far as using the Internet as a marketing tool goes, innumerable examples can be cited, e.g. Macmillan Publishing has created an independent business unit which will operate as a virtual bookstore. Competition for securing audience is gets more fierce. This bodes well for the medium because in order to attract more people to a site, the quality of the information, interaction and user experience will continue to climb as sites compete for viewers. In order to develop successful, topical programs on the net, Andrew Fry recommends that the site must do three things. First, it must develop a recognizable look and feel (branding). Second, it must maintain a high standard for delivering hard to get or consistently entertaining material (quality of content). And third, it must build, measure, and maintain a community of users i.e. "the audience" or "information community". The quality and content of the sites on the Web are rated by companies such as Nielson. Ratings for a particular web site will not only consist of number of hits. Number of emails generated from the site, volume of postings at registered and related news 63

groups and of course demographic information generated via questionnaires AND comments. In a paper based on an in-depth Mosaic Group study of the state of the Internet in China and India (http://som.csudh.edu/fac/lpress/articles/chind.htm), comparison between the Internets in the two countries are based on six dimensions: pervasiveness (users, hosts), geographic dispersion(top-tier political divisions with POPs, number of cities with POPs), sectoral absorption (commercial, education, government, health), connectivity infrastructure (domestic backbone, high-speed access, exchanges, international bandwidth) organizational infrastructure (telecommunication competition, backbone competition, access provider competition, coordinating organizations) and sophistication of use. Factors such as illiteracy, language, government action and programs that encourage Internet penetration such as freemarket purchase of PCs India etc are taken into account. Marshall McLuhan (1960) wrote, "The advent of a new medium often reveals the lineaments and assumptions, as it were, of an old medium" The Internet is a multifaceted mass medium, that is, it contains many different configurations of communication. Its varied forms show the connection between interpersonal and mass communication that has been an object of study since the two-step flow associated the two (Lazarsfeld, Berelson, & Gaudet, 1944). Chaffee and Mutz (1988) have called for an exploration of this relationship that begins "with a theory that spells out what effects are of interest, and what aspects of communication might produce them" The Internet plays with the source-message-receiver features of the traditional mass communication model. Internet communication takes many forms, from World Wide Web pages operated by major news organizations to Usenet groups discussing folk music to E-mail messages among colleagues and friends. Sources of the messages can range from one person in E-mail communication, to a social group in a Listserv or Usenet group, to a group of professional journalists in a World Wide Web page. The messages themselves can be traditional journalistic news stories created by a reporter and editor, stories created over a long period of time by many people, or simply conversations, such as in an Internet Relay Chat group. The receivers, or audiences, of these messages can also number from one to potentially millions, and may or may not move fluidly from their role as audience members to producers of messages.

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The various differences between the tradition communication media and the Internet as the modern medium of communication can be given as below: Traditional Media Print media newspapers, books, magazines, pamphlets. Many-to-many communcation, effortful, slow, expensive Broadcast television, radio One-to-many, effortful, very expensive Common carriers Telephone, postal service One-to-one, cheap, fast/slow, carriers provide communication medium not content Internet Communication Differences to traditional media: Many-to-many communication ,Fast, cheap, interactive, global scale Universal Access Anonymity Communication without linking personal, physical information. Reproducibility Communications (email, newsgroup postings) can be stored and perfectly reproduced. Implications for notions of property and personal privacy: Traditional notion of property associated with idea of control. Notion challenged by internet communication. Traditional notion of privacy associated with short lifetime of our actions in restricted physical space. Both notions challenged by internet In their article entitles The Internet as Mass Medium, Merrill Morris and Christine Ogan of the Indiana University talk about the various communication theories as applicable to the emedia. In approaching the study of the Internet as a mass medium, the following established concepts seem to be useful starting points. Some of these have originated in the study of interpersonal or small group communication; others have been used to examine mass media. Some relate to the nature of the medium, while others focus on the audience for the medium.

Critical mass
This conceptual framework has been adopted from economists, physicists, and sociologists by organizational communication 65

and diffusion of innovation scholars to better understand the size of the audience needed for a new technology to be considered successful and the nature of collective action as applied to electronic media use (Markus, 1991; Oliver et al., 1985). For any medium to be considered a mass medium, and therefore economically viable to advertisers, a critical mass of adopters must be achieved. Interactive media only become useful as more and more people adopt, or as Rogers (1986) states, "the usefulness of a new communication system increases for all adopters with each additional adopter" (p. 120). Initially, the critical mass notion works against adoption, since it takes a number of other users to be seen as advantageous to adopt. For example, the telephone or an E-mail system was not particularly useful to the first adopters because most people were unable to receive their messages or converse with them. Valente (1995) notes that the critical mass is achieved when about 10 to 20 percent of the population has adopted the innovation. When this level has been reached, the innovation can be spread to the rest of the social system. Adoption of computers in U.S. households has well surpassed this figure, but the modem connections needed for Internet connection lag somewhat behind. Because a collection of communication services-electronic bulletin boards, Usenet groups, E-mail, Internet Relay Chats, home pages, gophers, and so forth-comprise the Internet, the concept of critical mass on the Internet could be looked upon as a variable, rather than a fixed percentage of adopters. Fewer people are required for sustaining an Internet Relay Chat conference or a Multi-User Dungeon than may be required for an electronic bulletin board or another type of discussion group. As already pointed out, a relatively large number of E-mail users are required for any two people to engage in conversation, yet only those two people constitute the critical mass for any given conversation. For a bulletin board to be viable, its content must have depth and variety. If the audience who also serve as the source of information for the BBS is too small, the bulletin board cannot survive for lack of content. A much larger critical mass will be needed for such a group to maintain itself-perhaps as many as 100 or more. The discretionary data base, as defined by Connolly and Thorn (1991) is a "shared pool of data to which several participants may, if they choose, separately contribute information" (p. 221). If no one contributes, the data base cannot exist. It requires a critical mass of participants to carry the free riders in the system, thus supplying this public good to all members, participants, or free riders. Though applied to organizations, this refinement of the critical mass theory is a useful way of thinking about Listserv, electronic bulletin boards, 66

Usenet groups, and other Internet services, where participants must hold up their end of the process through written contributions. Each of these specific Internet services can be viewed as we do specific television stations, small town newspapers, or special interest magazines. None of these may reach a strictly mass audience, but in conjunction with all the other stations, newspapers, and magazines distributed in the country, they constitute mass media categories. So the Internet itself would be considered the mass medium, while the individual sites and services are the components of which this medium is comprised.

Interactivity
This concept has been assumed to be a natural attribute of interpersonal communication, but, as explicated by Rafaeli (1988), it is more recently applied to all new media, from twoway cable to the Internet. From Rafaeli's perspective, the most useful basis of inquiry for interactivity would be one grounded in responsiveness. Rafaeli's definition of interactivity "recognizes three pertinent levels: two-way (noninteractive) communication, reactive (or quasi-interactive) communication, and fully interactive communication" (1988, p. 119). Anyone working to conceptualize Internet communication would do well to draw on this variable and follow Rafaeli's lead when he notes that the value of a focus on interactivity is that the concept cuts across the mass versus interpersonal distinctions usually made in the fields of inquiry. It is also helpful to consider interactivity to be variable in nature, increasing or decreasing with the particular Internet service in question. Uses and Gratifications Though research of mass media use from a uses-andgratifications perspective has not been prevalent in the communication literature in recent years, it may help provide a useful framework from which to begin the work on Internet communication. Both Walther (1992b) and Rafaeli (1986) concur in this conclusion. The logic of the uses-and-gratifications approach, based in functional analysis, is derived from "(1) the social and psychological origins of (2) needs, which generate (3) expectations of (4) the mass media and other sources, which lead to (5) differential patterns of media exposure (or engagement in other activities), resulting in (7) other consequences, perhaps mostly unintended ones" (Blumler and Katz, 1974). 67

Rosengren (1974) modified the original approach in one way by noting that the "needs" in the original model had to be perceived as problems and some potential solution to those problems needed to be perceived by the audience. Rafaeli (1986) regards the move away from effects research to a uses-andgratifications approach as essential to the study of electronic bulletin boards (one aspect of the Internet medium). He is predisposed to examine electronic bulletin boards in the context of play or Ludenic theory, an extension of the uses-andgratifications approach, which is clearly a purpose that drives much of Internet use by a wide spectrum of the population. Rafaeli summarizes the importance of this paradigm for electronic communication by noting uses-and-gratifications' comprehensive nature in a media environment where computers have not only home and business applications, but also work and play functions. Additionally, the uses-and-gratifications approach presupposes a degree of audience activity, whether instrumental or ritualized. The concept of audience activity should be included in the study of Internet communication, and it already has been incorporated in one examination of the Cleveland Freenet (Swift, 1989).

Social presence and media richness theory

These approaches have been applied to CMC use by organizational communication researchers to account for interpersonal effects. But social presence theory stems from an attempt to determine the differential properties of various communication media, including mass media, in the degree of social cues inherent in the technology. In general, CMC, with its lack of visual and other nonverbal cues, is said to be extremely low in social presence in comparison to face-to-face communication (Walther, 1992a). Media richness theory differentiates between lean and rich media by the bandwidth or number of cue systems within each medium. This approach (Walther, 1992a) suggests that because CMC is a lean channel, it is useful for simple or unequivocal messages, and also that it is more efficient "because shadow functions and coordinated interaction efforts are unnecessary. For receivers to understand clearly more equivocal information, information that is ambiguous, emphatic, or emotional, however, a richer medium should be used" (p. 57).

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Unfortunately, much of the research on media richness and social presence has been one-shot experiments or field studies. Given the ambiguous results of such studies in business and education (Dennis & Gallupe, 1993), it can be expected that over a longer time period, people who communicate on Usenets and bulletin boards will restore some of those social cues and thus make the medium richer than its technological parameters would lead us to expect. As Walther (1992a) argues: "It appears that the conclusion that CMC is less socioemotional or personal than face-to-face communication is based on incomplete measurement of the latter form, and it may not be true whatsoever, even in restricted laboratory settings" (p. 63). Further, he notes that though researchers recognize that nonverbal social context cues convey formality and status inequality, "they have reached their conclusion about CMC/faceto-face differences without actually observing the very nonverbal cues through which these effects are most likely to be performed" (p. 63). Clearly, there is room for more work on the social presence and media richness of Internet communication. It could turn out that the Internet contains a very high degree of media richness relative to other mass media, to which it has insufficiently been compared and studied. Ideas about social presence also tend to disguise the subtle kinds of social control that goes on the Net through language, such as flaming.

Network Approaches
Grant (1993) has suggested that researchers approach new communication technologies through network analysis, to better address the issues of social influence and critical mass. Conceptualizing Internet communities as networks might be a very useful approach. As discussed earlier, old concepts of senders and receivers are inappropriate to the study of the Internet. Studying the network of users of any given Internet service can incorporate the concept of interactivity and the interchangeability of message producers and receivers. The computer allows a more efficient analysis of network communication, but researchers will need to address the ethical 69

issues related to studying people's communication without their permission. These are just a few of the core concepts and theoretical frameworks that should be applied to a mass communication perspective on Internet communication. Reconceptualizing the Internet from this perspective will allow researchers both to continue to use the structures of traditional media studies and to develop new ways of thinking about those structures. It is, finally, a question of taxonomy. Thomas Kuhn (1974) has noted the ways in which similarity and resemblance are important in creating scientific paradigms. As Kuhn points out, scientists facing something new "can often agree on the particular symbolic expression appropriate to it, even though none of them has seen that particular expression before" (p. 466). The problem becomes a taxonomic one: how to categorize, or, more importantly, how to avoid categorizing in a rigid, structured way so that researchers may see the slippery nature of ideas such as mass media, audiences, and communication itself.

Mass communications and society

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Content: . Objectives: Organization of chapters: The topics are arranged in a sequence most commonly used to teach the material in college courses. Chapter 1: History of Communication Chapter 2: Mass communication and mass society: a critical perspective Chapter 3: Theories of Mass Communication Chapter 4: Media structures and institutions Chapter 5: Media content Chapter 6: Media effects Chapter 7: Media audiences Chapter 8: Global mass communication Chapter 9: Cultural theories of mass communication Chapter 10: Media organizations Chapter 11: Communication, technology and society Chapter 12: Gender and race studies and media Chapter 13: Media law and ethics Chapter 14: Alternative media Chapter 15: Media and popular culture Chapter 16: Communication, propaganda and public opinion Chapter 17: Communication in the digital age Chapter 18: Chapter 19: Chapter 20: Chapter 21: Chapter 22: Chapter 23: Chapter 24: Chapter 25:

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