Abstract
Mass media evolution has occurred over the centuries, with most notable steps taking place during the recent times. These days, media play a major role in political, social, and cultural life, especially in the democratic societies. This paper looks into the key developments in the media evolution throughout the twentieth century noting their impact on American culture. The major developments in mass media over the course of the twentieth century encompass the dominance of broadcast media, including radio and television, over the print media, and, in more recent times, the dominance of the new media, such as the Internet, social media, and electronic games, over the traditional media, both print and broadcast. The essay also explains the concept of media convergence and traces how it affects everyday life. Media convergence is explained as the flowing of the content across various media channels. It occurs when a few media channels come together to operate and produce synergy. Finally, the essay reflects on the importance of media literacy in maintaining responsible consumption of media. The goal of responsible media consumption is preventing media users from manipulations and, at the same time, helping them appreciate the value of the messages they encounter.
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Key words: mass media, last century, key developments, broadcast media, print media, Web 2.0, media convergence, media literacy, and responsible media consumption.
Evolution of Mass Media during the Twentieth Century
Mass media evolution has occurred over the centuries, with most notable steps taking place during the recent times. These days, media play a major role in political, social, and cultural life, especially in the democratic societies. The major developments in mass media over the course of the twentieth century encompass the dominance of broadcast media, including radio and television, over the print media, and, in more recent times, the dominance of the new media, such as the Internet, social media, and electronic games, over the traditional media, both print and broadcast. Also, the evolution of mass media during the twentieth century encompasses the growth of the significance of this phenomenon in national and world politics, for example, as a tool of liberation or other sorts of political influences. Last but not least, the last decade of the twentieth century brought the most powerful change to the essence of mass media – the evolvement of Web 2.0, which replaced the already existing in the 1990s Web 1.0. Web 2.0, as a term, was coined in 1999 to describe Web technologies that are based on user-generated content. As a result, the twentieth century can be viewed as a landmark period in the history of media development, which boosted the importance of media and paved the way for a completely innovative Web 2.0 period.
Influence of Mass Media Developments on American Culture
Nowadays, media play a major role in political, social, and cultural life across the globe and especially in democratic societies. For instance, in Western democracies, as Louw (2005 in Macnamara, 2010, p.155) observes, mass media have been viewed as “the Fourth estate” after such key institutions as the parliament, the judiciary, and the Church. In social life, media are viewed as creators of communities, because they foster such processes as nationalism, intercultural exchange, and collaboration among various groups in contemporary societies (Nakamura, 2014). In particular, with regard to the formation of national identity, scholars believe that “newspapers did far more than report happenings in a particular regional locale.” Essentially, they assert that media “also brought the nation into being by creating a readership that came to view or imagined itself as sharing a common identity” (Nakamura, 2014). With regard to culture, as one can find in Theodor Anderson’s essay “The Culture Industry Reconsidered,” media’s influence was great. Specifically, media were responsible for creating “monopolistic mass culture,” when culture started to be sold for profit and, at the same time, became accessible to millions of individuals rather than the elites (Nakamura, 2014). Besides, mass media influenced how people in America started to entertain themselves and spend their leisure time. For example, viewers started spending long hours watching series and soap operas, taking part in TV shows, or using media for studying (Salzman, 2009).
Media Convergence and How It Affects Everyday Life
Generally speaking, scholars view convergence as process in which modes converge and the distinctions between point-to-point communications (e.g. post or telephone) and mass communications (e.g. television) get blurred (Lugmayr & Zotto, 2016). Media convergence is viewed today as an ongoing process when new technologies are being accommodated by the existing communication and media industries and cultures (Lugmayr & Zotto, 2016). Also, an explanation of media convergence is the flowing of the content across various media channels. Indeed, media convergence occurs when a few media channels come together to operate and produce synergy. Media convergence is accompanied by technological convergence, which can be illustrated by the following example: the smartphone is a device which can be used as a phone, camera, music player, social media station, e-mail client, microblog publisher, a GPS navigation device, a game console, or whatever else that an app or a web browser allow this smartphone to be used for (Lugmayr & Zotto, 2016).
Media convergence affects everyday life in the following ways. In has changed the way people produce letters or messages: a message can be constructed orally and graphically and pop out of the smartphone in this form. In addition, the news has become more accessible. Further, businesses started developing in new, vigorous ways, based on close interactions between businesses and consumers.
Importance of Media Literacy for Responsible Media Consumption
The importance of media literacy is defined by the fact that it helps people maintain control over media rather than having media control them. The purpose of media literacy education is to help users use media wisely and create a sort of immunization to manipulative media practices on television and on the Internet (Galician & Merskin, 2007). Responsible consumption of media starts with interacting with today’s media in a skeptical manner (Galician & Merskin, 2007). For instance, Elizabeth Thoman, a pioneer in the U.S. media literacy movement, suggests that all media users, including young and old users, apply the following framework to any media message they come across. They should ask five questions: 1) who created this or that message? 2) what creative techniques did he or she use to attract my attention? 3) how might different individuals have understand this or that message differently from me? 4) what points of view, lifestyles, or values are represented or omitted from this message; and 5) why is the message being sent? (Thoman in Galician & Merskin, 2007, p. 7). In this way, responsible media consumption aims at preventing media users from manipulations and, at the same time, helping them appreciate the value of the messages they encounter.
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