Mass Communication

Mass communication and new technologies are part of our everyday lives – especially computer-mediated communication. According to Tubbs and Moss, there are seven ways we use the computer for communication: Internet, email, teleconferencing, cell phones, telecommuting, video games, and blogs.
Also, there are three elements to mass communication: the audience, the experience, the source. The source is basically the gatekeeper. The gatekeeper is the person who, by selecting, changing, and/or rejecting messages, can influence the flow of information to a receiver or a group of receivers. However, the gatekeeper must keep in mind at all times the choices he/she has to make about what information is received. There are economic choices, legal restrictions, deadlines, ethics, competition, news value, news holes, and reaction choices that come into play (Tubbs).
One interesting thing that the textbook (Tubbs) also mentioned was framing. Framing is choosing a broad organizing theme for selecting, emphasizing, and linking the elements of a story. It functions in four ways: defining problems, diagnoses clauses, makes moral judgments and suggests remedies. I think that this also links with the agenda-setting theory that the press tells us what to think about by establishing a relative importance of certain issues.
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In today’s society, mass communication has become part of our daily lives. Each day I have to check my email to make sure I know what I am doing that day to make sure I know what I am doing that day and to make sure that no classes have been cancelled (please be cancelled, please be cancelled) as well as check my facebook to stay “in the know” about anything and everything social. I also carry my phone with me all the time and am constantly checking it for texts or answering phone calls from my friends. So, in all honesty, mass communication is inevitable.
More importantly about mass communication is the experience I had with the recent election of President Barack Obama, considering that I actually had to pay attention to each candidate’s beliefs, plans and ideas if they were elected president. This past year was the first time that I got to vote so it was important for me. However, the downside to that was the fact that the information given to me was through the media. Therefore, it was very influential on my decision. I watched the news, I read the newspaper, I read books I watched the debates, and all of those things influenced my own ideas and choice.
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A few weeks ago on The Office, the episode was about a certain post or article or something of that sort that was post on the internet for anyone to read. The post said that the Dunder Mifflin Paper Company would probably have to declare bankruptcy soon because sale deficiency and money issues. All branches of the paper company found out within a matter of minutes what was going on. At this point all employees are frantic and demand to know what is going on and if they will lose their jobs or not. Our textbook (Tubbs) tells us that 90 percent of the news we hear is through the mass media. In today’s society, I would say that the internet is the main source of the diffusion of information.
Another way that the Scranton branch of the Dunder Mifflin Paper Company uses the media is for advertising. Because the diffusion of information is quite rapid, it is easier for companies to advertise information about their company or product without much effort

Tubbs, S. L., & Moss, S. (2006). Human communication: Principles and contexts (11th Ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill