1. Communicators are professional media organizations engaged in the production and dissemination of information. Mass communication is an organized communication activity that is guided by specific organizational goals and policies.

2. Mass communication is an activity that uses advanced communication technology and industrialized means to mass produce, copy and disseminate information.

3. The target of mass communication is the general public in society. "Audience". Anyone who is exposed to mass communication information is an audience. The broadness of the audience means that mass communication is a large-scale communication activity aimed at meeting the information needs of most people in society.

4. The information spread by the mass has both commodity attributes and cultural attributes. Meaningful consumption.

5. From the perspective of the nature of the communication process, mass communication is a very one-way communication activity. Media organizations provide information unilaterally, and the audience can only choose and contact within the scope provided; without flexible and effective feedback channels, the audience lacks direct reaction to the activities of media organizations. The one-way nature of mass communication gives it a powerful social influence.

6. Mass communication is an institutionalized social communication.

(1) Environmental monitoring function;

(2) Social coordination function;

(3) Social heritage inheritance function.

(1) Environmental monitoring: the activity of collecting and communicating information. Be alert to external threats; meet the information needs of society's routine activities.

(2) Explanation and regulations: When conveying information, it is accompanied by an explanation of the event, prompting people what kind of behavioral reactions they should take. The purpose is to guide and coordinate the behavior of social members in a specific direction.

(3) Socialization function: It plays an important role in spreading knowledge, values ​​and behavioral norms. The socialization process of modern people is also carried out in the mass communication environment. The educational function of mass communication.

(4) Provide entertainment.

(1) Political functions: surveillance, coordination, transmission of social heritage, laws, and customs;

(2) Economic functions: collect information, interpret information, formulate economic policies, activate and manage markets, and initiate economic behaviors;

(3) General social functions: information about social norms or functions, accepting or rejecting, coordinating public understanding and wishes, exercising social control, conveying social norms and functions to new members of society, entertainment.

Schramm clearly proposed the economic function of communication. The economic function of communication is not limited to providing information services to other industries. It itself is an important part of the knowledge industry and occupies an important position in the entire social economy.

(1) Social status confers functions. This status-conferring function brings a legitimizing effect to things supported by the mass media.

(2) Social norm enforcement function. Mainly from its public nature. The media publicizes behaviors that deviate from social norms and public morals, creating strong social pressure and thus forcing compliance with social norms.

(3) "Narcotic effect" as a negative function. When people are overly indulged in the surface information and popular entertainment provided by the media, they will unknowingly lose their social mobility and be satisfied with "passive accumulation of knowledge."

Blyth's "American Democracy" explores the relationship between mass communication and the political and democratic process.

1.Public opinion

2. Three functions of newspapers and periodicals:

3. France, Tarde, "Public Opinion and Clusters".

4. Cooley's "Social Organization".

1. Background:

2. Lazarsfeld and Merton:

3. Kitaro Shimizu:

4. Green:

1. No simple conclusion can be made about the nature of the social impact of any kind of communication media.

2. We cannot naively believe that mass communication will definitely bring democracy and freedom to mankind, nor can we simply conclude that it will inevitably lead to fascist despotism or dictatorship; we can neither assert that it will definitely promote the development of human nature and morality, nor that it will It can only lead to the degradation or degradation of human nature.

3. In the final analysis, in the history of mass communication, a powerful large-scale social information system emerged with the development of communication technology. The key to the nature of the impact of this information system lies in the people who use and manage it, and the place in which it is located. social systems and the missions these systems give it. Therefore, it is meaningless to simply talk about the "good" and "evil" of mass communication without specific historical and social conditions.