What is (mass) Communiction?

At its core communication is the simple most important institution humans have. Communication allows for two humans to share ideas that can later be expanded upon to help formulate even more ideas and that is the building block of all society. Daniel Chandler describes the flow of information within the channel of communication in five simple elements: it starts with an info source, goes to a transmitter and then through a channel, is received by a receiver and then reaches its destination. This is perhaps the most simplistic breakdown of the transfer of information possible and it shows that it was developed with an engineering background, not a social one. While a good starting point, the Shannon and Weaver Model does not take into account the give and take that occurs within the normal communication. A discussion is not simply one person speaking and another listening; instead it is a dialogue between two people feeding off of others ideas. The complexities of communication would be tested by the emergence of global interactions and is discussed by Hanno Hardt (Chandler, 1994).

Whereas Chandler outlines the formal steps of basic communication, Hardt addresses the shift from communication to communication of mass scale. Communication, especially today, is not as cut and dry as the Shannon and Weaver Model would have it, instead it has to deal with the influx of millions of opinions. The printing press, Hardt believes, was the first step in distributing information on a large scale and he does not necessarily believe this is a great thing. Hardt believes that the printing press helped take communication from authentic to inauthentic. Mass communication is subject to manufactured or “cookie cutter” type responses. These manufactured responses can represent flawed or misrepresented information, and this comes to be when people are looking to eschew their beliefs onto a large amount of people. Hardt differentiates between sharing and transference as two and one way communication, but mass communication produces compliance. The atmosphere of mass communication does not represent the give and take necessary for adequate communication, instead it allows for a saturation of ideas that breeds a society of compliance (Hardt, 2004).

Starting with the printing press communication was forever changed, but no change has affected the flow of information quite like the internet. As Hardt believed, mass communication allows for an over saturation of ideas. Unlike in the Shannon and Weaver model where communication was a one-way street, the internet allows for thousands of communication avenues to open up. The ability for everyone to voice their opinion is a great step in personal liberties but it also breeds a culture of followers. Where information is everywhere, it is easy to get lost and thus follow the loudest voice.

Chandler, D. (1994). The Transmission Model of Communication. Retrieved January 4, 2011, from http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/short/trans.html

Hardt, H. (2004). Myths for the Masses: An Essay on Mass Communication. Malden, MA, USA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.