Media in Everyday Life

Mass Media- it is a term that has been used since the 1920’s to describe those media forms designed to reach large audiences perceived to have shared interests. It is used to refer to describe the conventions in which audiences receive regularly programmed entertainment shows or news about the vents of the world, usually from a relatively centralized mass distribution source such as a newspaper corporation, a national television network, a major film studio, or a news and entertainment media conglomerate.

Public Sphere- it is ideally a space- a physical place, social setting, or media arena- in which citizens come together to debate and discuss the pressing issues of their society.

Convergence- it is a term used in the 1990’s to describe the coming together of media forms, has resulted in the merger of such previously discrete instruments and technologies as the still camera, the video camera, the telephone, the musical listening device, the internet, and the video screen. The “bundling” of a previously discrete range of services (cable, internet, and telephone) into one provider is the result of convergence.

Critique- a criticism or critical comment on some problem, subject, etc. Schiller proposed the idea that mass broadcasting, with its ability to reach large numbers of people across national boundaries with the same messages, fosters conformity to dominant ideas about politics and culture.

Digital culture changes our media paradigm since the advent of “Mass Media” by the increased prevalence and the varieties of uses to which such technologies as the Internet, the Web, cell phones, and wireless communication devices were put by consumers demanded a rethinking of the term mass by the end of the twentieth century. Consumers now have increasingly been recognized by media producers as occupying smaller, niche audiences that must be addressed according to their specific tastes, interest, and language groups. Today, consumers are also more likely to regard themselves as potential producers, as well as consumers who exercise choice, with regards to the media through which they interact in their everyday lives.