Communication, Society, and Media

Today the socialscape teems with WhatsApp messages, Instagram reels, Facebook notifications, news, views, visuals, etc. Truly, the society is abuzz with media bits and bytes. Going with Debra Merskin, ‘from sunrise to sunset our worlds are filled with sights and sounds of the mass media’. The Industrial Revolution of the eighteenth century directed the populations towards urban areas, creating audiences pertaining to different economic classes yearning for infotainment. Printing machine invented by John Gutenberg spearheaded the new era of modernization. Gradually, the Information age superseded the Industrial Age. Development in telecommunications and computers has led to convergence with conventional mass media. Media play a major role in informing the public, shaping perceptions and through it the national agenda. Nonetheless, the Active Audience have entered the mediascape and created more impact than the media itself. Mass Media has been shaken by the winds of industrialization, commoditization, monopolization, corporatization, market-driven values and trivialization of issues. The advent of Information Technology has brought forth sweeping changes. Distances have disappeared and borders shrunk. As Marshal McLuhan opined, the world has been transformed into a global village ‘information obsessed global village’. The mute spectator of media power dynamics had acquired power and voice due to the new technology. This chapter unravels the evolution of Communication, the emergence of mass society and the implications of new media.