Mass Media

Social Media

Each and every day globalization becomes ever more prominent, the role of media and advertising also increases. Important for the large multinational companies that can take best advantage of globalization include the even larger "market" to which they sell their products and services. Ideally then, attitudes and consumption habits need to be similar for best effect. As a result many media companies promote and project a more aligned culture that will cross these boundaries but also allow easier consumption of their products, this can be done by using the new and improved techniques of mass media.

New media and communication technologies enable advertisers to reach select group of consumers with selective media. Marketers now search for and implement media and marketing plans aimed at special selective market. One of the current trends in mass media is the social media. Social media refers to the means of interactions among people in which they create, share, and exchange information and ideas in virtual communities and networks^.  Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein define social media as "a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content." Furthermore, social media depends on mobile and web-based technologies to create highly interactive platforms through which individuals and communities share, co-create, discuss, and modify user-generated content. It introduces substantial and pervasive changes to communication between organizations, communities, and individuals. - Wikipedia.

In today’s world, social media is something that everyone around the planet has access to and uses it on a daily basis. Social change also hastened the transition. Consumers become accustomed to receiving their entertainment for free. Transition from passive media exposure was replaced by active participation into new social media.  Some of the famous social media are Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

The areas of mass communication, social media, has touched are advertising and public relationship. Advertising has been affected, as now multinational companies can advertise their products to their target audience at a cheaper price, but the audience will be bigger. Social media fosters relationships and collaborations. Social media is a boon for professionals willing to connect with others from the same industry or the similar interests. Through social media businesses and individuals can build their network of friends and contacts. Their sales and profits will increase and also they can improve their brand name and brand image. Through social media, advertising has improved for companies, even smaller start ups that can advertise their products at a cheaper price, but can be seen by all people. Public Relations are when the business organization has a two-way communication with its target market, which through social media becomes easier. Public relationships with its customers improve as they can send out questionnaires and improve on those places where they are weak. Now multinational companies use the internet as a source of feedback and also use a panel of consumers to generate their data. Social media helps participate, converse, share, collaborate and link up.

The areas of mass communications that has not been affected with these current trends of social media are broadcasting. Broadcasting is the distribution of audio and video content to a dispersed audience via any audio or visual mass communications medium, but usually one using electromagnetic radiation (radio waves). The receiving parties may include the general public or a relatively large subset thereof. Broadcasting has been used for purposes of private recreation, non-commercial exchange of messages and emergency communication such as radio and amateur television (ATV) in addition to commercial purposes like popular radio or TV stations with advertisements. Social media cannot help in broadcasting. News channels and televisions are some of the sources of media that fit to broadcast, as to broadcast some media you need audio and video playing at the same time and therefore television is most suitable for broadcasting and not social media. As they reach and cater a large audience as television sets are in every home and are easily accessible. Businesses are turing to social media to market their products and increase their sales These trends are positive as they cater to a large audience and fulfill the needs of communication and media and transferring messages to the target audience. It is positive and beneficial for companies as it is a cheap source of media, with a large audience. But with these positive aspects come a few negative ones too like cyber bullying, no censorship, privacy concerns, information overload and also lack of gatekeepers, who decide what information can be seen by the public and what cant be seen. But on the large scale social media had more positive effects and features than negative features.

Youtube Video- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EC2zfQ9Rb1s