Talk:Mass media

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	This article has been identified by the Version 1.0 Editorial Team as a Core Topic, one of the 150 most important articles for any encyclopedia to have. Please help improve this article as we push to 1.0. If you'd like help with this article, you may nominate it for the core topics collaboration.
Start	Mass media has been rated as Start-Class on the assessment scale.

This page has been cited as a source by a media organization. See the 2005 press source article for details. The citation is in: "Veritas Lux Mea.", The Feature, February 9, 2005.

This article has been selected for Version 0.5 and the next release version of Wikipedia. This Socsci article has been rated B-Class on the assessment scale.

This article is part of WikiProject Journalism, an attempt to better organize information in articles related to journalism. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.

This article is part of WikiProject Media, an attempt to better organize information in articles related to media. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.

	This article is supported by the Sociology WikiProject, which gives a central approach to Sociology and related subjects on Wikipedia. Please participate by editing the article Mass media, or visit the project page for more details on the projects.
Start	This article has been rated as Start-Class on the quality scale.
High	This article has been rated as High-importance on the importance scale.

The use of "mass media" as a plural sounds strange to my ears. I think most people would agree that it sounds snobbish and affected. "The mass media" is practically a fixed phrase, and I've never ever heard it except in the singular.

The fixedness or otherwise of the phrase "the mass media" does not affect its plurality or otherwise. And I do not accept that saying the mass media are is necessarily "snobbish and affected" any more than I would classify saying the mass media is as "ignorant and uneducated". I have rewritten the intro in an attempt to find a NPOV middle way. -- Picapica 15:31, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Whether it's snobbish or not, it isn't what people normally say in real life. CalJW 23:50, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

---

Contents 1 XML? 2 medium is mechanism 3 thematic of mass media 4 MSM 5 Timeline 6 Mainstream vs. mass 7 Does mass media currently exist? 8 Rewrite of the introduction

[edit] XML?

"Because recipients have(sic) differently and have different needs, the conversion cannot be automated with the electronic means available today."

I removed the above phrase, which misinformed readers. XML is the standard language for automated cross-media publishing. The move toward separation of content from layout in web publishing, using CSS to define form and XML to standardize content provides the foundation for today's widespread cross media publication. Various levels of automation have been acheived in this process. PHP/SQL systems also afford various degrees of automated cross-media publication, often including reliance on XML and CSS. Padidliwa

[edit] medium is mechanism

Mass Media is the term used to describe the large mob of journalists and reporters that work for the various television news programs, newspapers and radio stations. Like any mob, the intelligence of the group can be found by either averaging each members intelligence or just taking the intelligence levels that is lowest. Whilst each individual may be highly intelligent, they possess an overall stupidity which means that when they start reporting on something en masse, they almost always get it completely wrong.

See code red virus as a typical example.

Use of the term "media" as a singular mass-noun is increasingly common, but Mirriam-Webster's says the term "is likely to incur criticism especially in writing." Readers can otherwise decide to their own satisfaction whethe rthe above comment comprises a group attribution error. Padidliwa 16:56, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] thematic of mass media

This page has been vandalised, please review the accuracy of its content

[edit] MSM

I disagree with the following sentence but at the moment can't come up with a better way to phrase it:

This is countered by right-leaning authors with the term "MSM", the acronym implying that the majority of mass media sources is dominated by leftist powers which are furthering their own agenda (see Conspiracy theory, Media bias in the United States).

Two objections:

1. The term MSM isn't just used by right-leaning authors. Left-leaning ones use it too.
2. It is not clear how the initials "MSM" by themselves inherently imply political bias. Sure, you can use the term to speak derisively of mass media, but devoid of context it might be unsure if you are doing so from the left or from the right.
3. The juxtaposition of the link Conspiracy theory is not neutral.

am currently reseaching on the form of media preferred most by youths today it could be easily said that internet could be the most prefered source due to the amount of sourses of links internet can access.210.7.30.245 01:55, 22 February 2007 (UTC)student

[edit] Timeline

With all due respect to the students editing the timeline...wikipedia has formatting guidelines to follow. Squiggyfm 18:51, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

To the Mass Media Students/Professors - Please use the discussion page (the page you're on now) to talk about your facts. The main page is not the place for them. Thank you. Squiggyfm 15:17, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I suggest pointing all the students to Wikipedia:School and university projects so that maybe their instructor sees it. I'm sure it's very helpful to see what other instructors have tried.

[edit] Mainstream vs. mass

Mainstream media redirects to this article. I'm not sure I think that's appropriate - after all, a newspaper or TV news show can be intended as a reliable, conventional, and thus (debatably) mainstream source of information, while not catering to a national audience. Mainstream, thus, in my opinion refers more to the methods than to intended audience.

Thoughts?GreetingsEarthling 02:41, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

"Mainstream" definitely refers to intended audience, and will proscribe to the norms of its society. "Mass" attached to media indicates nothing more than numbers.

[edit] Does mass media currently exist?

Should it be mentioned that very few feel that there is any such thing as a mass media? All forms of media have fragmented many times, and nearly all are now dedicated to serving particular niche audiences. TV is commonly cable or satellite, with such selections as the Food Network and Discovery Flight. Radio has spread from AM to FM to satellite to internet streaming. There is an incredible preponderance of magazines, and the internet is a whole 'nother beast illustrating this.

"very few feel that there is any such thing as a mass media" I think you're kidding yourself Philbradley 10:49, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

- well we haven't got to that stage yet, but tv/newspapers & big book publishers certainly feel threatened, as anybody in the media biz would agree. I think it is worth a mention Johnbod 20:24, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

which is the most preferred form of mass media today?210.7.30.245 01:51, 22 February 2007 (UTC)rǎčheal

[edit] Rewrite of the introduction

if the term public media is synonyms with mass media we should just say that and leave it at that, if it people can find references for it meaning something different then we should have either a section that addresses the diffrence or a separate article.

Parts of the introduction have little to do with the content of the article and has excess use of adjectives without citation ie:

"All of these public media sources have better informed the general public of what is going on in the world today." 

better than what? who says its better? This appears to make the claim "All mass media better informs" This claim seems very broad, un-cited and not directly addressed in the article.

also the paragraph that talk about traditional broadcasters shifting to the internet is not really addressed in the article the same way its addressed in the introduction. In the article it talks about shifting qualities of mass media that may force us to rethink or redefine what mass media is, in the introduction it seems to only note that mass media producers are jumping on the internet bandwagon without mentioning the structural differences. Also it seems to conflates the Internet with a form of media by listing it along side blogs and podcasts.

and the final sentence:

"hardest forms of media to decipher what is true and what is not"

again "harder than what"? person-2-person communication? If so who says this?

anyway thanks for hearing me out Mdale 14:04, 12 December 2006 (UTC)