Main Content
Lesson 2: Media and Society
Models of Communication Media
From Your Course Author
I enjoy listening to podcasts because I am able to continue with other activities while consuming the content. However, I derive a surreal feeling from modern radio broadcasts with call-in programs because I feel more empowered at every opportunity to voice my opinion on a subject that interests me. The intimacy and excitement I get from participating in such communication encounters are never the same when watching a TV show, listening to music, scrolling through Instagram, or streaming a movie on Netflix. Each medium referenced constitutes the media; however, they all function as different communication models.
In the past, distinctions between communication models were limited to interpersonal communication versus mass media. In fact, this influenced the design of the traditional mass media model, which constituted a mediated communication from a sender to a passive receiver, along with connecting elements such as a message and a medium. This was a one-way communication with little or no interaction between the sender and receiver. For example, an author is the dominant voice a reader listens to while reading a book, but the reader has no privilege of engaging the author in a conversation. The same applies to traditional mass media such as radio and television, where fragmented audiences serve as receivers of a message shared by producers or broadcast organizations. See Figures 1.3 and 1.4 of Croteau, Hoynes, and Childress (2022) for graphical representations of this model (pp. 9–10).
Due to the advent of the internet, some elements from the traditional models have changed. For example, the internet has blurred the lines between interpersonal communication and mass media, converting the roles of sender and receiver to "media users" and "industry," creating varied forms of content, and expanding communication channels into a broader range of technologies. These adjustments have led to a simplified interconnected communication model, as presented in Figure 1.5A of Croteau, Hoynes, and Childress (2022). It is "embedded within a vital element—the social world," which is a mix of social forces and non-media actors (p. 12).
The simple model has no top–bottom approach; it is a circular process, with all components affecting each other. The media industry replaces the sender in the old model as the producer of content. It consists of all personnel, organizations, and structures that make up the media. Users are substituted for receivers, representing everyone influenced by media content, capable of constructing meaning from such content, and involved in a role formerly reliant on the industry, like developing and distributing content. Users play a crucial role in this model.
Likewise, previously identified as the message, content is all-encompassing, as it includes every form of information created, produced, and shared. Technology is that channel through which media content is exchanged. Although technology strongly affects users' experiences, its introduction, direction, and adoption are equally affected by whether or not users decide to utilize it.