According to an online business dictionary, mass communication and communication are the same concepts with different definitions and quantities attached to them. Mass communication is: the delivery of messages to the general public by utilizing mass media such as national press, radio, and television [4]. Communication is: a two-way process of reaching mutual understanding, in which participants not only exchange information but also create and share meaning [2].
Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver were engineers working for Bell Telephone Labs. They developed a model of communication consisting of five elements: an information source, transmitter, channel, receiver, and destination. In addition to the five elements, they name a sixth one, a “dysfunctional factor”, noise [1]. These elements and their concept of communication only pertains to the telephone and radio. Communication and mass communication in cyberspace are different from what they conceptualize. “Shannon and Weaver’s model makes no allowance for dynamic change over time” [1]. Technology develops more and more over time and when Shannon and Weaver came up with their model, they were not thinking about the developments in ways to communicate from one place or person to another, like the internet.
The internet changes the traditional Shannon-Weaver model of communication because the elements of the transmitter, channel, receiver, and noise source are completely different than that of a telephone and radio. When analyzing communication via cyberspace, a noise source may never occur. The element of channel can be a wire like a telephone but wireless computers also exist, with using wireless network connections and satellites. The transmitter and receivers when involving cyberspace are much more complex and in-depth then that of a telephone call or radio broadcast.
Contrary to Daniel Chandler’s article, Hanno Hardt explains mass communication in a more modern way. He explains mass communication with mass media and democracy directly relating. Hardt states that, “the shift from communication to mass communication began with the invention of the printing press… changing the balance of individualism communication to institutional communication,” stating that mass communication has developed over time [3]. Mass communication emerged as a force in the production, circulation, and interpretation of public opinion. Communication has changed and adapted to the rise of mass communication because it affects private and public behavior of people [3]. Mass communication theories emerged to society in the 1940s and today those theories are still discussed, and new ones are being created.
[1] Chandler, Daniel. "Transmission Model of Communication." Prifysgol Aberystwyth / Aberystwyth University. 18 Sept. 1995.
[2] "Communication." Business Dictionary. WebFinance, Inc., 2010. Web. 5 Jan. 2011.
[3] Hardt, Hanno. Myths for the Masses: an Essay on Mass Communication. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub., 2004. Print.
[4] “Mass Communications.” Business Dictionary. WebFinance, Inc., 2010. Web. 5 Jan. 2011.
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