Culture and Communication

It is hard to imagine what life would be like without technology and the media. Our current generation depends heavily on technology and as time advances, so does our technological resources. As a result of the media playing such a large role in the lives of society today, elite culture has basically been wiped out by popular culture. Since people are able to communicate through social media, they are able to express to the world how they dress, act, eat, etc. This allows for society to exchange and share ideas of what they like and don't like and from this the media pulls those ideas and uses it as a way to reach out. After observing the trends in society, the media tries to create "the next latest fad" and if society likes it then they make money and if not then they move on to their next idea. "Because we depend on secondhand sources for information, the mass media play a major role in determining the content of our culture"(Culture and Communication McGraw-Hill). All of this idea sharing and receiving is known as communication which is extremely important because without it, all the messages being transmitted wouldn't be picked up. "Communication is a process involving the sorting, selecting, and sharing of symbols to help the receiver elicit from his or her own mind a meaning similar to that in the mind of the communicator" (Culture and Communication McGraw-Hill). Communication can be interfered, however, by channel noise, semantic noise, and psychological noise. Channel noise is any external interventions, semantic noise is not understanding what the message is trying to convey, and psychological noise is not hearing the message clearly. All of these interruptions occur in the communication process and while the media tries very hard to prevent any noise as much as possible, it is inevitable that some miscommunication will always take place.

Mass communication first began in the 15th century after Johannes Gutenberg invented moveable type. With this latest anomaly, books no longer had to be written by hand which allowed for more people to have access to books and stories and later printing made it possible to mass produce these stories. Next to printing, pictorial prints were the first mass produced images and allowed for popular markets to create images in their minds while reading stories that relate. "The development of printing, which led to the spread of literacy to the middle classes, and the emergence of trade and commerce caused major cultural changes in Western civilization" (Culture and Mass Communication McGraw-Hill). Following printing, people were able to create short stories and share them with the world and the first type of story book that took off was called the chapbook, known today as the chapter book. The next latest type of book was the novel, written in serial form, which emphasized personal experiences and presented morality through numerous themes. After printing took off and writers began to emerge, the industrial revolution was introduced. The workweek was shortening, opening up more leisure time. With this extra time came sports, reading, listening to the radio, watching television, etc. As things became popular they became mass produced which led to popular culture and the elimination of elite culture. "Other critics of mass culture believed that it had transformed our culture in to just another commodity to be bought and sold and that it was intellectually destructive because it provided escapism and served a narcotic function in society. They saw the new mass culture consuming rather than preserving cultural objects that were being mass-produced to meet society's entertainment needs" (McGraw-Hill). The desire for individuality is what then led to subcultures such as punk rockers, motorcycle gangs, thespians, trekkies, etc. While these groups thought they were being unique, they were really just conforming. As soon as the media discovered that subculture, products were made that would interest that specific subculture and when that group takes the bait is the moment they are no longer different.