Understanding Mass Communication

1. Eras Of Media Theory

2. Eras Of Media Theory
 There are four main eras of media theory.
 The four eras are :-
 Era Of Mass Society and Mass Culture
 Era Of Scientific Perspective on Mass Media
 Era Of Limited Effects
 Era Of Cultural Criticism

3. Era Of Mass Society and Mass Culture
 This era of theory was started in the latter part of the 19th century.
 Media was seen as influential, but negative.
 This era is characterized as a time in which people were worried about the power
that media had, the power to influence mediocre people.
 People feared that media would ruin the value of society.
 Theories that came about during this time are the Propaganda Theory and Magic
Bullet Theory.

4. Era Of Scientific Perspective on Mass
Media
 This era existed in around 1940-1950.
 The era emphasized the use of scientific research and experiments that were
carefully conducted.
 The experiments were conducted to prove that media was not as powerful as
thought in the previous eras.
 This era emphasized that people can resist media’s influence in multiple ways.
 Theories that came under this era are the limited-effects theory, two-step theory
and Lasswell’s Model.

5. Era of Limited Effects
 The limited effects era existed in 1950-60s.
 Limited effects theory was widely supported over mass society theory. At this
point, researchers thought there was nothing more to research. Some considered
the mass communications field to be dead.
 However, the communications discipline grew because students started attending
journalism schools in numbers never seen before.
 Elite pluralism and social cognitive theory are notable theories from this era.

6. Era Of Cultural Criticism
 This era came in about 1960’s and lasted till 1980’s.
 The era of cultural criticism is characterized by the creation of cultural studies in Britain.
 British cultural studies focused on how mass media promote hegemonic cultures.
 Hegemonic cultures are cultures that are forced from the outside onto people and it
only serves people in elite positions.
 It looked at how powerful elites retain power. Culture is the behavior that members of
a group learn.
 Theories of culture intended to provide explanation on how the media changes culture
and the consequences that result.

7.  An example of a cultural theory is the political economy theory. The political
economy theory is a macroscopic theory of culture because it is concerned about
society as a whole and not just individuals.
 Microscopic theories focus their attention on individuals and not society. The
political economy theory studies the powers that power elites have over the
institutions that run countries.

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Thank
You!
By Malay Gupta