Mass Communication Defined

The word ‘mass’ is itself value laden and controversial, and the term ‘communication’ still has no agreed definition – although Gerbner’s (1967) ‘social interaction through messages’ is too hard to beat. Nevertheless, there is sufficient commonality in widely held ‘common-sense’ perceptions to provide a working definition and a general characterization. The term ‘mass’ denote great volume, range or extent (such as a people or production, while ‘communication’ refers to the giving and taking of meaning, the transmission and reception of messages. One definition (Janowitz,1969) reads as follows: ‘mass communication comprise the institutions and techniques by which specialized group employ technological devices (press, radio, film, etc.) to disseminate symbolic content to large, heterogeneous and widely dispersed audiences’. In this and similar definitions, the word ‘communication’ is really taken to mean ‘transmission’, as viewed by the sender, rather than in the fuller meaning of the term which includes the notions of response, sharing and interaction.

            The process of ‘mass communication’ is not synonymous with the ‘communication media’ (the organized technologies which make mass communication possible). There are other common uses of the same technologies and other kinds of relationship mediated through the same network. For instance, the basic forms and technologies of ‘mass’ communication are the same as those used for very local newspaper or radio. Mass media can also be used for individuals , private or organization purposes. The same media that carry public messages to large publics for public purposes can also carry personal notice, advocacy messages, charitable appeals, situation-vacant advertise-ments and many varied kinds of information and culture. The point is especially relevant at a time of convergence of communication technologies, when the boundaries between public and private and large-scale and individual communication networks are increasingly blurred.

            Everyday experience with mass communication is extremely varied. It is also voluntary and usually shaped by cultures and by requirements of one’s way of life and social environment. The notion of mass (and homogeneous) communication experience is abstract and hypothetical; and where, on occasions, it does seem to become a really, the causes are more likely to be found in particular conditions of social life than in the media. The diversity of technology-mediated communication relationship is increasing as a result of new technology and application. The general implication of these remark is that mass communication was, for the beginning, more of an idea than reality. The term stand for a condition and a process while is theoretically possible but rarely found in any pure form. It is an example of what the sociologist Mark Weber called an ‘ideal-type’ – a concept which accentuates key elements of an empirically occurring reality. Where it does seem to occur, it turns out to be less massive, and less technologically determined, than appears on the surface.

Read more »

Alternative traditions of analysis: structural, behavioral and cultural

          Putting the matter simply, there are essentially three main alternative approaches: structural, behavioral and cultural.

          The structural approach derives mainly from sociology but includes perspective from history, law and economics. Its starting point is “society-centric” rather than “media-centric” and its primary object of attention is likely to be media system and organizations and their relationship to society. In so far as questions of content arise, the focus is likely to be on the effect of social structure and media systems on patterns of content. In so far as questions of media use and effect are concerned, the approach favours the analysis of representative aggregate data derived from surveys or complete sets of statistic. Fundamental dynamics of media phenomena are sought in differences of power and live-chances in society.

          The behavioral approaches has its principal roots in psychology and social psychology but is also represented by a sociological variant. In general, the object of interest is individual human behavior, especially in matters to do with choosing, processing and responding to communication messages (thus mass media use  and effect). Psychological approaches  are more likely to use experimental methods.  The sociological variant focuses on the behavior of members of socially defined populations and favours the multi-variate analysis of representative survey data collected in natural conditions. Individuals are classified according to relevant variables of social position, disposition and behavior, and the variables can be statistically manipulated. In the study of organizations, participant observation is commonly adopted. Context analysis is often practiced as a form of behavioral research. treating media documents (text) as the equivalent of populations which can also be sampled and submitted to statistical variable analysis.

          The cultural approach has its roots in the humanities, in anthropology and sociolinguistics. While very broad in potential, its has been mainly applied to questions of meaning and language, to the minutiae of particular social context and cultural experiences. It is more likely to be ‘media-centric’ (although not exclusively), sensitive to differences between media and settings of media making and perception, more interested in the in-depth understanding of particular or even unique cases and situations than in generalization. Its methods favour the qualitative and depth analysis of social and human-signifying practices.

Read more »

The Functions of Goals

Despite the problems associated with the goal model approach, the concept of organisational goals serves a number of important functions.

■ Goals provide a standard of performance. They focus attention on the activities of the organisation and the direction of the efforts of its members.

■ Goals provide a basis for planning and management control related to the activities of the organisation.

■ Goals provide guidelines for decision-making and justification for actions taken. They reduce uncertainty in decision-making and give a defence against possible criticism.

■ Goals influence the structure of the organisation and help determine the nature of technology employed. The manner in which the organisation is structured will affect what it will attempt to achieve.

■ Goals help to develop commitment of individuals and groups to the activities of the organisation. They focus attention on purposeful behaviour and provide a basis for motivation and reward systems.

■ Goals give an indication of what the organisation is really like, its true nature and character, both for members and for people outside of the organisation.

■ Goals serve as a basis for the evaluation of change and organisation development.

■ Goals are the basis for objectives and policies of the organisation.

Read more »

Goal Model Approach

The goal model approach concentrates on the study of organisational goals and the measurement of success against the realisation of goals. Etzioni suggests a potential disadvantage of this approach. Goals are ideals and more attractive than actual achievement. Organisations are characterised by low effectiveness. They rarely achieve their goals with any degree of finality and can, therefore, almost always be reported as a failure. The goal model approach results in attention being focused on the organisation’s lack of success in attaining goals at the expense of more meaningful forms of analysis. Instead of comparing organisations in terms of their stated goals, performance may be assessed relatively against different organisations. The concept of organisational goals is ambiguous. Goals may be expressed very simply: in the case of business organisations, for example, to make a profit, or to increase productivity. Such broadly based goals might be taken for granted and they tell us little about the emphasis placed on the various activities of the organisation in meeting its goals. In any case, profit might more correctly be interpreted as a reward to the shareholders or providers of capital, and a means of ensuring the continued existence of the organisation and maintaining its growth and development.

Read more »

Types of Work Group

            A number of different types of groups exist in the workplace. They can be clasified into two main categories: formal and informal. These categories and several subcategories are shown in figure.

Formal group is a group officially created by an organization for a specific purpose. There are two major types of formal groups: command and task. A command, or functional groups is a formal group consisting of a manager and all the subordinates who report to the manager. Each identifiable work unit (manager and subordinates) in an organization is considered to be a command group. A task group is a formal group created for a specific purpose that suplement or replaces work normally done by command groups. Task groups can be either relatively permanent or temporary. A permanent task group, often called a standing comittee or team, is charged with handling recruiting matters in a narrowly defined subject area over an indefinite, but generally lengthy, period of time.

Infromal group is a group that established by employees, rather than organization, to serve group member’s interest or social needs. There are two major types of informal group created: interest and friendship. An interest group is an informal group created to facilitate employee pursuits of common concern. A friendship group is an informal group that evolves primarily to meet employee social needs. Informal groups can benefit an organization by enhancing the flow of information and reinforcing the willingness of employees to work together cooperatively. They can be detrimental, however when members place group concern above important work goals or have a serious falling out. Thus managers need to understand informal groups because of their potential for influencing organizational effectiveness.

Read more »

Types of Reinforcement

            In behavior modification, four types of reinforcement are available to help managers influence behavior: positive reinforcment, negative reinforcement, extinction, punishment. Positive and negative reinforcement are aimed at increasing a behavior, while extinction and punishment focus on decreasing a behavior. Skinner argued that positive reinforcement and extinction encourage individual growth, whereas negative reinforcement and punishment are likely to foster immaturity in individuals and eventually contaminate the entire organization.

Positive Reinforcement

            Aimed at increasing a desired behavior, positive reinforcement involves providing pleasant, rewarding consequence to encourage that behavior. The rewarding consequence, such as praise, a raise, or time off, is said to be positive reinforcer if it leads to repetition of the desired behavior. Since individuals differ in regard to what they find pleasant and rewarding, managers need to monitor the effects of a particular reinforcer to determine wether it is effective in encouraging the desired behavior.

            Because individuals frequently do not execute a new behavior exactly as required when they first try it, managers often find it useful to encourage a new behaviors through shaping. Shaping is the succesive rewarding of behaviors that closely approximate the desired response until the actual desiered response is made.

Negative Reinforcement

            Negative reinforcement focuses on increasing a desired behavior, but it operates in a different way. Negative reinforcement involves providing noxious (unpleasant) stimuli so that an individual will engang in the desired behavior in order to stop the noxious stimuli.in other words, the desired behavior is reinforced in a negative way because the individual must engage in the behavior in order to get rid of an unpleasant condition.

Extinction

            Extinction involves withholding previously available positive consequences associated with a behavior in order to decrease that behavior. Suppose that the first few times an employee engages in clowning behavior during staff meeting, the managers laughs. The laughter might tend to reinforce the clowning to such a point that the behavior becomes disruptive. The employee’s clowning behavior would be gradually extinguished if the manager proceeded to refrain from (withhold) laughing in response to it.

Punishment

            Involves providing negatives consequences in order to decrease or discourage a behavior. Punishment differs from negative reinforcement in at least two important ways. First punishment aims to decrease or discourage an undesirable behavior, whereas negative reinforcement attempts to increase or encourage a desirable behavior. Second, punishment is usually applied after the individual has angaged in an undesirable behavior.

Read more »

Reinforcement Theory

            The reinforcement approach to motivation is almost the antithesis of cognitive theories, since it does not concern it self with the thought processes of the individual as an explanation of behavior. The best-known approach to reinforcement theory, sometimes also called operant conditioning theory of behaviorism, was pionered by psychologist B. F. Skinner. According to reinforcement theory, our behavior can explained by consequences in the environment, and therefore it is not necessary to look for cognitive explanations. Instead, the theory relies heavily on a concept called the law of effect, which states that behaviors having pleasant or positive concequences are more lkely to be repeated and behavior having unpleasant or negative concequences are less likely to be repeated.

            In the reinforcement process, a stimulus provides a cue for a response or behavior that is then followed by a consequences. If we find the consequence rewarding, we are more likely to repeat the behavior when the stimulus occurs in the future. If we do not find it rewarding, we are less likely to repeat the behavior.

Read more »