Lesson 5: Communication

Media Channels
DISCIPLINES AND IDEAS IN THE APPLIED SOCIAL
SCIENCE
 Print media: The Newspaper

As a mass medium, the

newspapers key features are:
 Regular or periodical
appearance
 Use of print technology
 News content
 Individual or group reading
 Print media: The Newspaper

Newspapers are classified according to:

 Type of content: general news, political
newspapers, business newspapers, sports
newspapers
 Circulation area: national, local,
metropolitan newspapers
 Audience: community newspapers,
religious newspapers
 Language: national language, vernacular
 Periodicity: daily, weekly
 Print media: The Newspaper

Newsworthiness is defined in many ways,

but most journalists agree that the
following makes a story newsworthy:
 The exceptional or out of the ordinary
 Proximity
 Impact
 Prominence
 Conflict
 Human Interest
 Print media: The Newspaper

Newspaper companies are divided into two

sections: editorial and business. The editorial part is
composed of editors, reporters, photojournalists,
and other journalists. They gather and write the
news and information that fill the space called
“news hole”. The business section composed of
advertising and circulation sales staff, generates
revenue for the business. The advertising group sells
advertising space in the newspaper and the
circulation group sells newspaper copies in
newsstands or through subscription.
 Radio

Why is radio so dominant among

the mass media?
 Cost-effective
 Low demand on literacy skills
 Portability
 A background medium
 Accessibility to the visually-
challenged
 Radio

Radio programs are broadcast from

a centrally-located source called a
station. Radio stations may be
commercial or government-owned
stations. The vast majority are
commercial stations that obtain
revenue from advertising.
 Radio

Based on the type of waves used for

transmitting radio messages, radio stations
are classified as either AM or FM stations.
With AM(Amplitude Modulation) radio, the
amplitude or strength of the carrier wave’s
vibration fluctuates with the sound . With
FM(Frequency Modulation) radio, the
strength of carrier wave remains constant;
it is the frequency or number of vibrations
 Radio

Radio programs fall into two broad

categories: news programs and non
news. Non news programs include
talk programs, book readings, public
service programs, drama and music
 Television

Television comes next to radio in popularity, according to the

latest UNESCO World Communication and Information Report.
Its capacity to transmit pictures and sound and to do so live is
television’s main strength as a mass medium. Sporting, cultural,
and political events draw huge audiences when broadcast
live. But most of TV contents are not broadcast live.
Television programs may be categorized into news, news
analysis, documentaries, informal and formal educational
programs, sports, music and entertainment. The latter
category includes drama and comedy series, music and
dance music video clips, variety, game shows, reality
television. Moreover, there are public service programs and
corporate-sponsored programs.
 Other mass media: film and
recorded music

Relatively little attention is given to film and

recorded music as mass media inspite of their
importance.
Film is a true mass medium in the sense that it
reaches a large part of the population, even in
rural areas. The film has grown as an independent
cultural and entertainment industry that attracts
millions of people the world over.
Even lesser attention has been devoted to
recorded music as a mass medium. And yet the
replaying of music dominates much of radio
content and the auxillary use of mobile phones.
Other mass media: film and
recorded music

The term new media covers a set of

applied communication technologies that
continue to evolve. One definition
describes them as interactive forms of
communication that uses the internet,
including podcasts, blogs, social networks,
text messaging, wikis, virtual worlds, and all
other computer-aided communication
formats that are available online.
 Apart from being internet-based, among the
characteristics of the new media are:
 Interactivity
 Ubiquity and de-locatedness
 Accessible to individual users as sender or
receiver
 A medium of both mass and personal
communication
 Hypertextuality
 Multimediality
 Social media, a subset of the new media
has dominated the mass media landscape
in recent years. These are the Internet-
based applications that build on the
ideological and technological foundations
of WEB 2.0, and that allow the creation and
exchange of user-generated content.
 These may be classified into six
types, namely:
 Social networking sites
 Collaborative projects
 Content Communities
 Virtual game worlds
 Virtual social worlds
 Technologies