In every industrial segment, companies are involved into cut-throat competition to grab each other’s market share. The trick to sustain in this competition depends largely upon how creatively and effectively a company can inform about its products and services to people at large. Here, comes the role of mass communication as a tool to convert potential buyers into actual buyers. Mass communication is a form of communication that involves communicating with a large number of people at a single time through channels called mass media. For example, television, internet, newspapers, films, etc.
The basic components of mass communication that play a vital role in delivering messages effectively are:
Audience
Audience refers to the unsolicited receivers of a message sent through any form of mass media. For example, audience constitutes people watching drama, listening to radio, watching television, and reading magazines. The receivers are not directly related to the communicator. The receivers have varied demographics and are generally large in number found in different places. Audience may also refer to a section of people having common characteristics or interests. For instance, pet lovers, housewivesbank professionals, and children. Content meant for such type of specific audience is effectively delivered through a specific channel. For example, there are a number of housekeeping magazines that publish content mainly for the specific r, eader group of housewives. The audience can also be in varying numbers. A news program will have millions of viewers compared to a cartoon program that will be mainly viewed by children.
Gatekeeping
Gatekeeping monitors the flow of communication. It is a process through which any piece of information is edited, reworded, or deleted before making it public. It is important to avoid any unrest or resentment among people. Information on sensitive issues and terrorism are frequently submitted to gatekeeping.
Feedback
Every communicated message has a response known as feedback. The feedback in mass communication is not direct and spontaneous. It is erratic and late. Therefore, certain quantitative performance measures are devised to collect people’s response. For example, the viewership of a national daily helps in gauging its popularity and the number of hits on a website informs about its usefulness to internet users. For issues of national importance, public polls and blogs are commonly used to gather responses. Questionnaires, personal interviews, and telephonic conversations are used as feedback devices by many companies to know about the performance of their specific product or service.