Mass Communication: an almost Unregistered Concept in Everyday Life

During one of our earlier lectures in Journalism I, we discussed mass communication and all the intricacies that go into its process. There are three key qualities of mass communication that distinct it from group communication (one person to several defined others) and individual or 1-on-1 communication: it has the potential to reach a mass audience, it does not have immediate feedback, and it can travel through time and space. And though for some that may seem to be new information, it is probable that they have been using mass communication for a long time without even realizing the concept.

I remembered this lecture especially because I found it so intriguing that we as a society actually use mass communication on a daily basis, and sometimes without even realizing it. Our whole class was only just learning about this topic when we discussed it a couple weeks ago, but I'm sure that for many years now we have all been using tools such as the Internet to use the very idea we were learning about. We may login to Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram and post a status update or picture. We may get on Vine or YouTube and upload a video or vlog that we want to share with others. The key to all of these interactions is that in our technologically developing society, we are constantly given opportunities to share, post, and communicate with others on a massive format.

You don't get immediate responses to your Facebook posts like you would in an everyday conversation, but you may get 60 likes from people who you may not even know and end up receiving several comments at a later time, which is just one example of how you aren't able to get immediate feedback. Another aspect is that you can't keep that conversation over the course of time; it ends when the words leave your mouths and you part ways. But if you were to record that conversation and upload it to YouTube, the type of communication could also become a mass one, allowing you to save that conversation and view it 20 years from now if you wanted to.

And though I find it a bit ironic as to how we have all likely been using mass communication for a long time without even grasping the full idea, I do think it is a very useful technique that we have developed through human innovation and is actually quite fascinating in itself. But due to how the world is growing ever-increasingly connected to each other through our technological advances, mass communication is rapidly becoming a regularly incorporated notion to lives all across the world, and I think it's about time that we recognize that fact as a whole.