Mass Media

Essay by PaperNerd ContributorUniversity, Bachelor's January 2002

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What is mass media? Mass media can be a lot of things, it can be T.V. radio bill board, pants and etc. But the two most popular forms of mass media are T.V. and radio. Mass media is just ways for something to reach a large amount of people. Radio was the first major form of mass media. It was started in England in 1897. At first it was only transmitted by coded sounds from ships to shore radio. By 1920 there were over 500 radio stations. In 1930 and 1940 people were gathering to listen to shows on the radio for entertainment. Now radio is big business and is one of the main ways to advertise. There are over 11,000 different radio stations out there now with thousands of advertisements running every minute.

The other main form of mass media is T.V. The average household has 4 T.V.

sets in it today. From 1920-1950 experiments with sending pictures through the air were being done. In 1923 the 1st camera for broadcasting was out. In 1929 complete broadcasting systems were available. By 1945 T.V. took off right before world war two ended. In 1950 T.V. was in full swing. Early T.V. was almost always a live broadcast and advertisements were not on every second like they are today.

Today there are three main purposes of mass media entertainment such as films, situation comedies, dramas, feature films, and new seasons which brings new shows. Another is for information such as new programs, local weather, documentaries and news magazines. The last but not least in for profit such as ads. to get people to buy things. So i think mass media is ways to reach large groups of people for different reasons.