38. Us Press.

• Mass communication has revolutionized the modern world. In the United States, it has given rise to what social observers sometimes call a media state, a society in which access to power is through the media. T

• he term media, understood broadly, includes any channel of information through which infor¬mation can pass. Since a democracy largely depends on public opinion, all those involved in communicating information inevitably have an important role to play.

• The print and broadcasting media not only convey information to the public, but also influence public opinion. Television, with access to virtually every American household, which typically tunes stay in business.

• Newspapers and magazines have long been major lines of communication and have always reached large audiences.

• Today, more than 11,000 different periodicals are published as either weekly, monthly, bimonthly, quarterly, or semiannual editions.

• In 1986, a total of 9,144 newspapers were published in the United States. More than 62 million copies of daily newspapers are printed every day and over 58 million copies of Sunday papers are published every week.

• Readership levels, however, are not as high as they once were.

• Newspapers have had to cope with competition from radio and television.

• They have suffered a decline in circulation from the peak years around the turn of the century largely because of the trend of urban populations moving to the suburbs.

• Studies show that most suburban readers prefer to get "serious" news from television and tend to read newspapers primarily for comics, sports, fashions, crime reports, and local news.

• Nowadays, Americans consider television their most important source of news, and a majority ranks television as the most believable news source.

• Accordingly, newspapers have made changes to increase their readership levels. Some established metropolitan newspapers are now published in "zoned" editions for different regional and have always reached large audiences.

• Today, more than 11,000 different periodicals are published as either weekly, monthly, bimonthly, quarterly, or semiannual editions. In 1986, a total of 9,144 newspapers were published in the United States.

• More than 62 million copies of daily newspapers are printed every day and over 58 million copies of Sunday papers are published every week.

39. US Cinema.

• The cinema of the United States, also known as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. Its history is sometimes separated into four main periods: the silent film era, classical Hollywood cinema, New Hollywood, and the contemporary period. Since the 1920s, the American film industry has grossed more money every year than that of any other country.

• In 1878, Eadweard Muybridge demonstrated the power of photography to capture motion. In 1894, the world's first commercial motion picture exhibition was given in New York City, usingThomas Edison's Kinetoscope.

• The United States was in the forefront of sound film development in the following decades. Since the early 20th century, the U.S. film industry has largely been based in and around Hollywood, Los Angeles, California. Picture City, FL was also a planned site for a movie picture production center in the 1920s, but due to the 1928 Okeechobee hurricane, the idea collapsed and Picture City returned to its original name of Hobe Sound.

• Director D. W. Griffith was central to the development of film grammar. Orson Welles's Citizen Kane (1941) is frequently cited in critics' polls as the greatest film of all time.^[1] American screen actors like John Wayne and Marilyn Monroe have become iconic figures, while producer/entrepreneur Walt Disney was a leader in both animated film and movie merchandising.

• The major film studios of Hollywood are the primary source of the most commercially successful movies in the world, such as Gone with the Wind (1939), Star Wars (1977), Titanic (1997), andAvatar (2009).

• Today, American film studios collectively generate several hundred movies every year, making the United States the third most prolific producer of films in the world — the first being India and the second being Nigeria.^[2]