Media can be described as the communication channels and devices through which news, views, information, education, entertainment advertising, marketing and promotional messages are circulated and spread to and amongst people.
There are three main types of news media – print media, broadcast media and new age/ digital media. Print and broadcast media fall under the heading mass media in that they are used to interact with large audiences in various languages while new age/digital media is largely personal communication.
Print Media is probably the oldest form of communication and includes printed material such as –
- Newspapers are informative, entertaining and assist in interpreting news so that its readers become informed citizens who are able to make decisions based on numerous facts.
- Magazines are aimed at specific target audience and content covers niche topics pertinent to its target market from beauty and fashion to current affairs, travel and motoring, to name a few.
- Brochures, Flyers and Leaflets are part of the advertising and promotional literature of a company or organisation and are used to promote services or products to their target audience.
- In-House Magazines and Newsletters are produced by an organisation to communicate with its stakeholders – employees, shareholders, investors, customers and sometimes the press and public and deals in the main with subjects relating to the organisation.
- Press Releases are communications written or recorded directly for the news media/press in order to announce something that is newsworthy.
- Billboards, sometimes referred to as hoardings, are large outdoor boards for displaying advertisements placed in strategic locations for maximum exposure.
- Direct Mailers include a wide variety of printed items – brochures, sales letters, newsletters, catalogues, etc – that uses the postal service to deliver them to a post box or direct to the doorstep.
Currently print media is having to fight for its place in the communication mix available and in some areas has declined significantly in favour of other forms of media. The go green movement hasn’t helped its cause and neither has the fact that it is a static one-way communication as opposed to electronic media (broadcast and digital) which are interactive.
Today broadcast media are sources of information and entertainment distributed by wired and wireless television stations, radio stations, networks and the internet and include -
- Television appeals to both the auditory and visual senses of its audience and remains a hugely popular communication tool for both entertainment and information. In most first world countries more people get their news from television than from any other source.
- Radio broadcasting transmits audio content wirelessly to a broad audience. While in the main it is a one-way communication the dial-in programmes give listeners the opportunity to interact with presenters. A large percentage of radio stations broadcast music together with their other informative and entertainment content.
NEW AGE/DIGITAL MEDIA
The internet quite literally changed the world and introduced a whole range of digital hi-tech options which are re-shaping and re-defining the mass media.
Internet & Mobile Media
We live in an age where live updates reach us, via the internet, simultaneously to the events unfolding. Today the internet is one of the core means of mass communication. It has connected the world through computers, mobile phones and its social networking mediums such as :-
- You Tube
- Internet TV.
THE POWER & RESPONSIBILITY OF THE MEDIA
The enormous power the media wields in shaping and influencing society’s perceptions and beliefs can impact negatively if what the media declares as fact, and what is subsequently accepted with blind faith, is biased or inaccurate.
So, while we endorse media empowerment – freedom of expression and communication– as a sign of true democracy we equally look to the media to shoulder the huge responsibility it is entrusted with.