Mass media is the outlet for mass communication. It encompasses any form of media that you can think of including television, the internet, radio and newspapers. Mass media can be seen as the form of dissemination, and mass communication is the message. There are many ways to get your message across but it still reaches a great number of people.
Marshall McLuhan used the analogy of a beached fish to our relationship to mass media (1). The fish does not know it lives in water until it is beached, where as humans don’t fully understand their dependency on the media until they are removed. When I was younger we had a cottage with no television. Taking away the television, which was my main form of media, seemed like a punishment. Before we set off it always seemed to be a negative experience until we arrived and found other things to do. Even today if you asked me what we can do without television, the internet or other forms of media I wouldn’t know an interesting option, but when we are forced to forget about these technologies we find activities to occupy ourselves.
“The main problem with mass media is that it makes it impossible to fall in love with any acumen of normalcy” (2). In Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman, he discusses how the media imposes their views on consumers, which distorts our view of normalcy. Every person now has their own view on what is “normal” and these views change everyday as the media exposes us to new ideologies.
Works Cited
1. The Playboy Interview: Marshall McLuhan. Playboy Magazine, 1969.
2. Klosterman. Chuch. Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs. New York, NY:Scribner, 2003. Print.
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