Media audiences and Media geography Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4000 words

Media audiences and Media geography - Essay Example A potential representation of the traditional media is the folk media that projected the communication channels of the ancient societies. Modern media has a very different and advanced mechanism of mass communication. The mass media in the contemporary age is one of the most effective systems of life support that has pronounced effect on the global future and has the widest distribution all over the world. The contemporary age is essentially the age of information, in which the social and environmental issues continue to grow, that imparts the need of transition to a sustainable economy for every nation. â€Å"There has also been a healthful and general realization that the emphasis on â€Å"mass† audience – meaning an audience of individuals in lonely and direct contact with mass communication was never accurate† (Schramm, 1960, p. vii). The distinction between the audience of the past and the audience of the new age is imperative for the media to customize the content according to the every-changing and modifying needs of the audiences in an increasingly culturally diverse and globalized world. Media has a very strong influence on the society. Klapper (1960, p. 5) defined the consideration of the mass media as a compulsory and sufficient cause behind the effects observed in the audiences as short-sightedness, and recommended the consideration of media as just another influential element amidst other influences. â€Å"[I]t is the presumed power of the media to capture and sway the hearts, minds and behavior of the national public that account for both the fear and anxiety, and the hope and excitement, with which the media are regarded† (Fejes, 1984, p. 219). Media has always been both a trend-setter for and influenced by the audiences of a particular point in time. â€Å"The media are crucial in the social circulation of discourse and thus play a formative role in social and political change† (Fiske, 1996, p. 10). Media place s immense emphasis on the likes and dislikes of the audiences because the success of media fundamentally depends upon the approval of the audiences of the content that the media shows. The first and the foremost basic principle that every would-be programmer is taught through every handbook is â€Å"know the audience† (Ang, 1991, p. 19). â€Å"In order for television to achieve its work – that is, to make meaning and produce pleasure – it has to draw upon and operate on the basis of a kind of generalized societal common sense about the terms of the society and people’s social location in it† (Gray, 1995, p. 9). The research culture has evolved greatly over the passage of time. Although research has been a necessary part of the spread of knowledge in all times, yet the research was never as rampant as it is today. In the past, it was easy to advertise a product by just showing the models endorsing them as the audiences understood that the technology was not quite developed to expect every product to be made after a lot of research. Besides, the audiences themselves were too uneducated and far from being the part of a research culture to think on these lines. Over the decades, there has been immense advancement in technology which has played a fundamental role in the development of a research culture all over the world. Today, scientists are equipped enough to