Mass communication is the society-wide process by which a message is transmitted from an individual or institution to a large mixed audience unknown by the sender. The senders are majorly the bureaucratic organizations that create the information that is transmitted through mass media. The message is the encoded content that is transmitted to the receiver (Hanson, 2019). The message has to be transmitted through a technological channel such as print, radio, television, or the internet. The receivers in mass communication are usually the people receiving and decoding the message. Traditionally the receivers of the message have been anonymous; the senders don’t know most people receiving the message.
The internet is the most recent and most powerful mass media tool which allows people to respond to the information being delivered to them. Usually, the channels used in mass communication were one-way with little or no feedback from audiences. The internet has caused change that has a ripple effect in different areas ranging from corporate boardrooms to the social scene. The social media era allows people to tell a story of our likes, what we are doing and where we are. The senders of information can now get real-time web consumption statistics and learn how to craft their content towards their audience’s preference (Hanson, 2019). The audience is now the curators of its content. The world is now a global village, and we are all connected. The technological advancement in mass communication has also led to media inventions where all devices and things in our built world are secured and can collect and emit data. The internet has also given birth to new forms of content distribution methods for the media that came before it, such as print and television that come in eBooks, blogs, and streaming services.
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Development of the Internet
The internet is described as a diversified set of independent networks linked to give its consumers a single uniform experience. The first use of the internet was around 1969 but was only used for interpersonal communication (Hanson, 2019). In 1991, Tim Berners –Lee released the worldwide web that gave people more straightforward access to the internet. The internet was unique due to its ability to incorporate interpersonal, group, and mass communications elements. Although the internet today is used to facilitate communication between people, it was initially created to enable computers to talk to each other. It was designed by the United States military to allow academic and military researchers to share information, and its data lines were run by the National Science Foundation. The network was developed by a farsighted division of the pentagon called the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), thus the name Arpanet (Hanson, 2019). The ARPAnet diversified to several universities and colleges in the United States, but the small networks were limited and unable to communicate with each other. Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf developed a box or gateway that would translate all the incompatible networks. The individual networks would communicate with the box using a standard protocol called the TCP/IP. IP is the Internet Protocol that gives each computer on the internet an address. TCIP is the transmission control protocol that controlled the data sent out on the internet. The name internet was derived from ‘internetworking of networks’ in 1973 (Hanson, 2019). After academic researchers started using the internet for personal use, other people became interested and began purchasing access to the network services through companies such as Prodigy, CompuServe, and AOL.
The World Wide Web
British Physicist Berners Lee invented the World Wide Web that allowed the internet to be a medium of mass communication. Users had access to any type of information anywhere in the world (Hanson, 2019). Since then, the World Wide Web has advanced so far beyond anyone’s imagination. Blogs are a culmination of what the purpose of the World Wide Web was that is to find and create any document easily. Writers now have a forum that allows them to earn money and gives them publicity. The internet has opened up long-tail news options that didn’t get attention on mainstream media through blogs, social media sharing apps, podcasts, and user-video sites such as Vimeo and YouTube. Social media is used for recreational or social purposes and used by businesses for advertising, collaboration, and public relations. The most used social media sites are YouTube, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Linked In, and WhatsApp. Video games are now being used as media content delivery devices and advertising platforms. The former U.S president Obama ran his campaign adverts in video games.
The internet has also influenced other industries such as advertising, with digital advertising being the fastest growing advertising market segment. The growth of mobile devices affects the development of digital marketing use and gives advertisers the advantage of interacting with their target audience. The internet also changed how public relations practitioners research and distribute information (Hanson, 2019). It also gave them a tool for spreading and manipulating rumors to create a crisis. They have an accessible medium to distribute photos and press releases to the press through emails and websites. They now have a platform for interactions and building relationships with the public.
Although the web has several benefits, it has disadvantages too. It has introduced novel moral dilemmas concerning corporate control, geographical boundaries, press freedom, and privacy rights (Hanson, 2019). A lot of material found on the internet is inappropriate for children, accelerates rumors and fake news, collects personal information from users, forcing them to give up their privacy once they visit specific sites, and creates a false sense of familiarity and connection among consumers.
The internet has been instrumental in providing an alternative form of independent media. For example, in the Middle East, Palestinians can post photos and videos of riots and violence that bass the Israeli government censorship (Hanson, 2019). Governments have quickly realized the impact the internet has on politics and culture and formulated laws that regulate it.
Conclusion
All these facts show that the development of the internet has been the most significant in all the years of mass communication existence. It has influenced how mass communication is implemented in the 21st century and is likely to cause more industry disruptions. Media organizations have to adapt to the fast-evolving nature of the internet to enable them to make the highest gains.
Reference
Hanson, R. (2019). Mass communication: Living in a Media World (7th ed.). SAGE Publications, Inc.
