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THEORIES OF COMMUNICATION
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The mass media (a plural form) refer to the
organized means of communicating openly, at a
distance, and to many in a short space of time.
Key features of mass communication

• They have a capacity to reach the entire
  population rapidly and with
• same information, opinions, and entertainment,
• They hold a universal attraction
• They can stimulate both hopes and fears in equal
  degree
• It is assumed that they have a great impact and
  influence.

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Related to the sphere of politics, the mass media
provide an arena of debate and a set of channels
for making policies, candidates, and ideas more
widely known and for providing politicians,
interest groups and agents of government with a
means of publicity and influence.
In the realm of culture, the mass media are the
main channel of cultural representation and
expression and the primary source of images of
social reality and materials for forming and
maintaining social identity.
Regarding the sphere of everyday social life, it
can be maintained that the mass media shape
everyday social life by means of the routines of
media use and media contents. Mass media
influence our leisure time and our lifestyles.
Gradually, the media have grown in economic value
because more international media corporations is
dominating the media market, the influence of
mass media is extending through sport, travel,
leisure, food and clothing industries, and the
mass media have interconnection with
telecommunications and all information-based
sectors.
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There are diverse perspectives within media
theory. For example, there are significant
differences between leftist and rightist
approaches.
While leftist theory is criticizing the power
exercised by large global media corporations,
rightist or conservative theorists draw attention
to the damage done by media to traditional
values.
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• Media-centric approach
• attributes much more autonomy and influence to
  communication and concentrates on the medias own
  sphere of activity.
• This approach perceives media as a primary force
  in social change, occurred as a result of
  irresistible developments in communication
  technology.
• In addition, it gives special emphasis to the
  specific content of media and the potential
  consequences of the different kinds of media like
  print, audiovisual, and interactive media.

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• Socio-centric approach
• mainly sees the media as a reflection of
  political and economic forces. So media theory is
  seen as a special application of broader social
  theory.
• For this perspective, mass communication theory
  is tending to respond to each major shift of
  media technology and structure.

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• A media-culturalist perspective that pays
  special attention to media content and form and
  the subjective reception of media messages by
  audiences.
• A media-materialist approach that emphasizes the
  organizational, financil and technological
  aspects of the media.
• A social-culturalist perspective that underlines
  the influence of social factors on media
  production and reception and the functions media
  in social life.
• A social-materialist perspective that considers
  media and their contents as a reflection of
  political-economic and material forces and
  conditions.

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The structural approach

• Receives mainly from sociology but it also
  includes perspectives from history, politics,
  law, and economics.
• Its starting point is socio-centric rather
  than media-centric.
• It deals primarily with media systems and
  organization and their relationship to the wider
  society.

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The structural approach-2

• Regarding the matter of media content, the
  structural approach focuses on the effects of
  social structure and media systems on patterns of
  content.

• Related to the media use and effect, it
  emphasizes the consequences of mass communication
  for other social institutions. This includes, for
  instance, the influence of political marketing on
  the conduct of elections or the role of news
  management and public relations in government
  policy.

• The main dynamics of media phenomena are located
  in the exercise of power, in the economy and the
  socially organized application of technology.

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The behavioral approach

• has its principal roots in psychology and social
  psychology but it also has a sociological
  variation.
• In general, the primary topic of this approach
  is individual human behavior, especially in
  relation to choosing, processing and responding
  to communication messages.
• The behavioral approach treats the mass media
  use as a form of rational, motivated action that
  has a certain function and has some objective
  consequences.

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The behavioarl approach - 2

• Psychological approaches generally use
  experimental research methods based on individual
  subjects.

• The sociological variant focuses on behavior of
  socially defined group members and uses
  multivariate analysis of representative survey
  data collected in natural conditions. Individuals
  are classified according to relevant variables of
  social position, disposition, and behavior. In
  the study of organizations, the sociological
  variant of the behavioral approach adopts
  participant observation method. Media texts are
  analyzed by means of content analysis.

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The cultural approach

• has its roots in the humanities, in
  anthropology, and in linguistics.
• This approach mainly focuses on questions of
  meaning and language, details of particular
  social contexts and cultural experiences.

• The study of media is part of a wider field of
  cultural studies. It is more likely to be
  media-centric, sensitive to differences between
  media and settings of media transmission and
  reception, more interested in the in-depth
  understanding of particular contents and
  situations than in generalization.

• It chooses the qualitative and in-depth analysis
  of social and human practices and the analysis
  and interpretation of texts.

• The cultural approach utilizes a wide range of
  theory including feminist, philosophical,
  semiotic, psychoanalytic, film and literary
  studies.