Media+Awareness

Media Awareness 2010-2011

Our goal is to understand hypotheses and theories about mass media, and then to evaluate the ideas to determine the extent to which they are valid and useful. We study various theories/ideas that try to explain the impact of mass media technologies on us. We also study the content (news, information, and entertainment ... “infotainment”) transmitted through those mass media.

What is a medium? What are mass media?

The mass media are instruments of communication that reach large audiences with no personal contact between those sending the information and those receiving it. The major forms of mass media are books, magazines, newspapers, radio, television, films, The Internet, and mobile computers like iPods, iPhones, and other “smart” devices. A medium is one of the forms of mass media. Industries have developed around mass media.

Of these various forms of mass media, for many decades television had the most influence on the socialization of American children. (Socialization is the interactive process through which individuals learn the basic skills, values, beliefs, and behavior patterns of the society in which they live.) Some 98% of the homes in the United States have television sets, with an average of more than two sets per home. More importantly, research shows that most children watch an average of 28 hours each week. Further, for decades, watching TV was the primary after-school activity for 6–17-year-olds, rivaled and often surpassed, only recently by computers and The Internet. However, the “World Wide Computer” is revolutionizing people’s experience of mass media.