Meaning of Mass Communication
Mass communication refers to the transmission of message to a large number of general people. Through mass communication, information can be transmitted quickly to a large number of geographically dispersed people. The audiences of mass communication may be heterogeneous in nature, large in number and scattered in a vast boundary of space. It requires many intermediary channels to transmit information to the huge number of audiences. Mass communication is done through radio, television, newspaper, magazine, periodical etc.
Many writers and scholars have defined mass communication in various ways. Some of those are quoted below:
According to R.T. Farrar, “Mass communication is a process by which an individual or organization transmits messages to a large, diverse audience which has a limited opportunity to respond.”
John Vivian stated, “Mass communication can be defined as the process of using a mass medium to send messages to large audiences for the purpose of informing, entertaining or persuading.”
Defleur and Dennis defined, “Maas communication is a process in which professional communicators use media to disseminate messages widely, rapidly and continuously to arouse intended meanings in large and diverse audiences in attempts to influence them in a variety of ways.”
In the opinion of Charles, R. Wright, “Mass communication is a special kind of social communication involving distinctive characteristic of audience, the communication experience and the communicator.”
According to M.W. Gamble and T.W. Gamble, “Mass communication is the multi-stage process by which an organization using technical devices or intermediate transmitters sends messages widely and rapidly to large, scattered, heterogeneous audiences.”
At last, we can say mass communication is a process of transmitting messages quickly to a large number of scattered audiences of different characteristics by using various intermediary channels like radio, television, newspapers, cinema slide etc. It is an extension of human voice through some intermediary channels.