NON-FICTION.materials / Chapter 2 Questions

Questions to Consider

from McQuail’s Mass Communication Theory

Chapter 2. The Rise of Mass Media

• Are public definitions of media stable?

• From the beginning to mass media

• Why is it necessary to distinguish between a process of mass communication and the actual media that make it possible when discussing the history of mass communication?

• What main elements should be considered when telling the history of mass media? Discuss them separately and in relation to each other. Use this information as a plan to describe different kinds of media.

• Print media: the book and the library

• Did the appearance of the printed book immediately lead to the change in content?

• What was the main function of the book in the early medieval period?

• What new professions emerged after the introduction of printing?

• Print media: the newspaper

• Name the precursors of a newspaper.

• Describe the features of the early newspaper.

• Why is it held that in the sphere of communication the newspaper was more of an innovation than the printed book?

• In what major ways can the history of the newspaper be told? Discuss relations between the newspaper and established power.

• Describe major types of newspaper.

• Other print media

• What other forms of publication than book and newspaper exist? Describe the most significant of them.

• Film as a mass medium

• Did film offer anything new in content or function?

• What contributed mostly to the great popularity of film?

• Discuss major strands in film history.

• Comment on the coexistence of entertainment function and didactic and propagandistic tendencies in modern films.

• What were the turning points in film history?

• Describe relations between film and other media.

• Broadcasting

• How long is the history of radio and television?

• Did these forms of mass media appear in response to a demand for a new kind of service or content?

• What are the distinctive features of radio and television?

• What are the main genre innovations of television?

• Has the status of television as the most ‘massive’ of the media changed over the years?

• What social functions are performed by television?

• Discuss the process of fragmentation of mass television.

• What helped radio prosper despite competition from television?

• Recorded music

• Why has relatively little attention been given to music as a mass medium?

• When did recording and replaying of music begin?

• What major changes have taken place in the character of the phonogram?

• Describe cultural significance of music.

• The communications revolution: new media versus old

• What does the expression ‘new media’ refer to?

• What are the essential features of ‘new media’?

• What are the main driving forces of an ongoing ‘communications revolution’?

• What impact did technological innovations have on mass communication?

• Differences between media

• Why is it much less easy to distinguish between different types of media?

• On which dimensions do clear differences between media remain?

• What dimensions do relations between media and society have?

• Comment on inter-media differences concerning the problem of freedom and control.

• What are major dimensions of traditional media use and reception?

• Differentiate types of media along these dimensions.

• What have digital media added to the established criteria of media differentiation?