Theories Of Mass Media

Now a day, whenever we want to hear music or want to watch movie or want to watch news shows for current news update, we use technology to access the information. The source which is used by the majority of the public to get the information is considered as mass media. Theoretically, Mass media is the medium of communication that is designed to reach the mass number of people at the same time.

In other words, “Mass media” is a deceptively simple term incorporating a countless group of institutions and individuals who differ in purpose, scope, method, and cultural context. Mass Media includes all forms of information communicated to large groups of people from handmade sign to an international news network. The most common platforms for mass

The basic assumption of strong media effects theory was that audiences were considered passive and homogeneous. This assumption was not based on experimental evidence but on assumptions of human nature which indicates toward the Magic Bullet Theory of communication. Magic bullet theory, considers the audience to be targets of an injection or bullet of information fired from the pistol of mass media. The audience are unable to avoid or resist the injection or bullets. Behind these perceptions of mass media effects there are two explanations. One, Mass media technologies were getting a widespread audience, including average households where people were surprised by the speed of information distribution, which may be influenced the perception of the audience of any media effect. Two, during the war time propaganda techniques were implemented by several governments as a powerful tool to unite their people. Where the definition of Propaganda is "information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a political cause or point of

John Pilger wrote in his book “Heroes” that, “The first is that the Americans lost the war because the media coverage in the United States, notably on television, undermined the military and political effort. The second is that most journalists and broadcasters opposed the war. Neither is true. Indeed, the truth may well be the opposite ... that on the whole the American media, while questioning the way in which the war was being fought, supported what Stanley Karnow, formerly of the New York Times, has since called a failed crusade.” In this war where America’s point of view was passive aggressive in media, Vietnamese point of view had a strong hold over the audience. An article titled “Show us the Truth about Vietnam”, (April 2000), from a French paper named Le Monde Diplomatique, highlighted that the Vietnam war was the most covered topic in the US than any other issue. Yet that coverage was extremely one-sided. For example, just 3% of coverage was on “enemy”