Paper No :- 15 Assignment

Name :- Mansi Upadhyay
Roll no :- 16
Semester :- 4
Year :- 2019-20
Paper no :- 15 (Mass Media and

                            Communication)
Assignment Topic :- Basic Function of Mass Communication

E-Mail :- mansiupadhyay06@gmail.com
Submitted to :- Department of English Maharaja Krishnakumar sinhji Bhavnagar University.

Words :- 1446

·     Functionalism:-

                            The focus on understanding the effects of mass communications, especially its social consequences and its impact on maintenance of social order gave rise to a theoretical framework called functionalism. Functionalism focusses on explaining slow, evolutionary change and not sudden changes. The limited capacity of functionalism to be used only in policy research, evaluation and planning has been criticized by many theorists. The focus of functionalism is on how mass communication serves society and fails to account for how humans interact with mass communication and construct meanings from messages. The focus on maintaining the existing social order and not allowing for any meaningful change has also being criticized.

     

                              The Mass Media serves several general and many specific Functions. In general, the mass media a serves surveillance of the Environment, Correlation of parts of Society, Entertainment, information, Cultural Transmission, Instructive, Manipulation, Interpretation and Socialization Functions:

1)           Serveillance of the Environment:-

                             
                             An important function of the media is to keep up a surveillance of all the happenings in the world and provide information to the human society. The media has the responsibility of providing news and cover a wide variety of issues that is of some service to the society. Media help maintain social order by providing instructions on what has to be done in times of crisis, thereby reducing confusion among the masses.

                          Surveillance involves two major tasks. When it serves the collective needs of the public, it constitutes public surveillance, and when it serves the needs of individual citizens, we call it private surveillance. Although private surveillance may lead to political activities, its primary functions are gratifying personal needs and quieting personal anxirties.

Example: In times of natural disasters, war, health scares, etc., it is the role of the media to create awareness by providing information on what is happening and of ways in which the disaster can be faced. 

2)           Correlation of parts of Society :-

                           This function relates to how the media’s selection of certain news and its interpretation affects how society understands and responds to it. People’s attitudes towards political issues, events, public policy, etc. are influenced to an extent by how the media frames and presents the issue in their discussions and presentations.

Example: The media’s reporting on the war in Vietnam played a role in changing the mindsets of Americans who started opposing sending soldiers to fight a losing war. Hitler used the media in his propaganda war against the Jews.

3)           Entertainment :-

                              This popular function of the mass media refers to the ability of the media to help relax people and create a means of escape from the stress of everyday life. The entertainment function of mass media has both positive and negative effects. The low quality of content is often criticized but the other benefits like helping people experience new events, stimulating emotions and helping people pass their leisure time show how important this function is.

Example: Television offers opportunities for people to view events that they would otherwise not be able to participate in like the Oscars, Independence Day Rallies, the Olympics, etc.

4)           Information :-

                             We have a need for information to satisfy curiosity, reduce uncertainty, and better understand how we fit into the world. The amount and availability of information is now overwhelming compared to forty years ago when a few television networks, local radio stations, and newspapers competed to keep us informed. The media saturation has led to increased competition to provide information, which creates the potential for news media outlets, for example, to report information prematurely, inaccurately, or partially.

5)           Cultural Transmission :-

                              This refers to the ability of the media to teach the various norms, rules and values that exist in a society and ensure its transfer from one generation to the next. Television programmes by and large reflects the society in which they are broadcast and promote the understanding of a society’s cultural heritage.  Children’s television programmes are designed to showcase good behaviors and moral standards which children can learn by watching.

Example:  Shows like Lassie, Full House, Seventh Heaven and the Brady Bunch promoted family values.

6)           Socialization :-

                           This function of major mass media that lasswell mentions in political socialization. It involves learning basic values and orientations that prepare individuals to fit into their cultural milieu. Before the 1970s studies largely ignored the mass media because parents and the schools were deemed the primary agents of socialization. Research in the 1970s finally established that the media play a crucial role in political socialization. Most information that young people acquire about their political world comes directly or indirectly from the mass media either through news offerings or entertainment shows, or through social media sites such as Facebook or Twitter. The media present specific facts as well as general values, teaching young people which elements produce desirable outcomes. Media also provide the young with behavior models. Because young people generally have less firmly established attitudes and behaviors, they are receptive to using such information to develop their opinions. 

                           The new orientations and opinions that adults acquire during their lifetime also are based on information from the mass media. People do not necessarily adopt the precise attitudes and opinions that earn the medias praise rather mass media information provides the ingredients that people use to adjust their existing attitudes and opinions to keep pace with a changing world.

7)           Instructive :-

                            Some media outlets exist to cultivate knowledge by teaching instead of just relaying information. Major news networks like CNN and BBC primarily serve the information function, while cable news networks like Fox News and MSNBC serve a mixture of informational and interpretation functions. The in-depth coverage on National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service, and the more dramatized but still educational content of the History Channel, the National Geographic Channel, and the Discovery Channel, serve more instructive functions.

8)           Manipulation :-

                               Journalists at prominent news venues periodically become major players in the game of polotics they do not just play their traditional role as chroniclers of information provided by others. The most common way for a journalist to break out of the role of political bystander is through an investigation. Many major print and electronic media enterprises have operated their own investigative units because investigative stories are both important and popular. They are also expensive to produce and tend to become scarce when media organizations are forced to economize.  

                             The purpose of many investigations is to muckrake. Journalists who investigate corruption and wrongdoing to stimulate government to clean up the “dirt” they have exposed are called muckrakers. The term comes from a rake designed to collect manure. President Theodore Roosevelt was the first to apply the term journalism. Muckraking today may have several different goals. The journalist primary purpose may be to write stories that expose misconduct in government and produce reforms. Or the chief purpose may be to present sensational information that attracts large media audiences and enhances profits. Other manipulative stories may be designed to affect politics in line with the journalists political preferences.

9)           Interpretation :-

                               Media not only survey the events of the day and bring them to public and private attention, they also interpret the events meaning, put them into context, and speculate about their consequences. Most incidents lend themselves to a variety of interpretation, depending on the values and experiences of the interpreter. The kind of interpretation affects the political consequences of media reports. For example: since 1962 the way in which the media interpret the legal and social significance of abortion has changed considerably. Abortion was widely considered to be murder. The abortionist was the villain and the pregnant woman was an accomplice in a heinous crime.

                              Numerous circumstances influenced the type of interpretation that the Finkbine story received. Media outlets interpret messages in more or less explicit and ethical ways. Newspaper editorials have long been explicit interpretations of current events, and now cable television and radio personalities offer social, cultural, and political commentary that is full of subjective interpretations. Although some of them operate in ethical gray areas because they use formats that make them seem like traditional news programs, most are open about their motives.

Thank You

 

 

Bibliography

"Functions of Mass Communication." n.d. https://www.communicationtheory.org/functions-of-mass-communication/.

Graber, Doris A. Mass Media and American Politics. Ed. Bennie Clark Allen. United State of America: Monica Eckman, 1923.

Schmitz, Andy. Functions and Theories of Mass Communication. Andy Schmitz, 2012.