大众媒体是一门与众不同的业务：（Mass media is a different business）

大众传播是通过大众媒体传达信息，用来描述由个人和实体以大规模人口的各种手段的学术研究的一个术语。在一个国家中，大众传播在创造人的认识和发展的过程中起到十分重要的作用。大众传播媒介是指那些专门进行加工设计以吸引众多的观众的关注，如民族国家的人口媒体。现如今有两种不同类别的大众传播媒介，即电子媒体和印刷媒体。不同形式如下：
Mass communication is a term used to describe the academic study of various means by which individuals and entities convey information to large scale of the populations through mass media. Within a country, mass communication plays a vital role in creating people’s awareness about policies and development. Mass media refer to the media that are specifically envisioned and designed to reach a very large audience such as the population of a nation state. There are two different categories of mass media, i.e. electronic media and print media. The different forms are as follow:
 

Broadcasting, for example, radio and television

Different types of disc or tape, video and computer

Film, both for entertainment and documentaries

Internet, many uses, there are both opportunities and challenges in internet, blogs, podcasts, news, music, speech, video and so forth

Publishing, for example, books, magazines and newspapers

Computer games, which have been developed into the mass media through the devices like PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360

以上是大众媒体的主要形式，涵盖范围广泛人们的生活。大众媒体正变得越来越重要，从公民的民生问题到政治问题，总之，大众媒体在整个世界中有广泛的的问题和影响。

The above are the main forms of mass media, which cover wide range of people’s lives. The mass media is becoming more and more important. From the citizen’s life to the political issues, in a word, the mass media has the impacts on a wide range of issues in the whole world.

 

There is a general consensus that the mass media is “not just any other business”. In the following chapters, the author will consider three rationales on the mass media.

 

Political government政治政府
 

Mass media plays a key role in enabling people to monitor the government’s actions and use the information in the voting decisions. This leads to a more accountable and responsive government to the people. The mass media is often regarded as the forth estate of the government, followed the administration, legislation, and judiciary.[1]

 

Different countries have different political government, thus political cultures. The behavior of mass media is different from country to country. The country like UK is more democratic than most of the others, its mass media are more transparent, therefore, the political government determines the behavior of the mass media, and the mass media help to shape the country’s political culture, thus the government.#p#分页标题#e#

 

It is self-evident that democracy is usually defined by the government, is largely dependent on the sufficient two-way communication and horizontal communication; otherwise there cannot be consensus building and responsiveness. In order to ensure the government works properly and avoid the abuse of power by the government, it is widely believed that the government should be accountable to the public, which is based on the spirit of democracy.[2] With the mission of monitoring the government, the mass media are given more rights, and the therefore the nature of the mass media is changing significantly. The mass media can perform three main aspects when monitoring the government: the collection of public opinion, intelligence and recourses.

 

For example, if a new bridge is built, only through the mass media, the people can understand the related costs and the benefits to the people. In other words, if an earthquake happened, the mass media will help the people to monitor the government’s efforts on improving the situation and preventing the future disasters.

 

The relationship between the institutions of media and government is similarly one of mutual self-interest, though not entirely one of equals. When the chips are down, it is government that makes law and controls the flow of information vital to media.[3]

 

The attitude of media institutions to government is partly defined by degree of interference, which are in turn defined by the terms of regulation for a given media industry.

 

The industry is different from other industries, as the mass media need to take consideration of the political government, as well as comply with the government. Sometimes, the mass media is the tools of the political government. Other businesses will not be like this, they just need to comply with the government regulations, no need to be the tools of the government.

 

Because of the wide reach, mass media contributes immensely to public information and political culture. How the government treats the media industry influences the development of the industry, and the quality and quantity of the news. Therefore, in modern societies, the media is becoming more and more important and can give the meaning and structure to the public.[4]

 

Therefore, there is a large part of the responsibility for both the construction and nutrition of a democratic political culture and even for the long-term performance of governance rests with the media system. Even there are many other factors contributing to the public deliberation, transparency, monitoring and so forth. The mass media is the most critical to improve a high quality of public disclosure that is democratically adequate.

 

Media globalization媒介全球化

 

In the last decades of 20th century, due to the rapid expansion of media companies, the media industry is becoming internationally. The globalization of electronic media like telephone, television, radio, and cable were resulted from a series of changes in technology, politics, as well as economy. The media globalization changed both the economics of media industry and the management of media companies.[5]#p#分页标题#e#

 

The foreign media should be responsive to the local government. For example, after the accession into the WTO, China is now open its most of markets to the rest of the world, including the media industry.

 

With the increasing degree of openness and transparency, many foreign media companies planed to enter into the Chinese media market. From Oct to Dec of year 2001, the Chinese government allowed three foreign television channels to enter into Guangdong province---CETV (owned by AOL Time Warner), Phoenix Satellite Television (owned by both Today’s Asia and News Corp) and Star TV (owned by News Corp).[6] It is the first time that foreign-owned channels are allowed by Chinese government to operate local satellite and cable system.

 

Foreseeing the increasing profitable environment in China, more and more international media companies begin to enter into the Chinese media market. Due to the western international companies’ strong wealth, they are able to expand into the new market, also they have the will to expand into the new market, as their local markets are quite mature, and the growth potential is small. With the open of the local government, these big companies are willing to compete in this emerging market. However, the economic media globalization imposes some impacts on the local cultures, which will be discussed later.

 

The foreign companies’ expansion increases the competition of the whole Chinese media industry. However, the competition helps the local media industry improve. The operations of the companies, the market, and the country’s transparency will achieve an overall improvement.

 

For the media institutions globalization means a global reach in terms of range of distribution, range of outlets, scope of the financial base, various audiences/consumers, range of products/texts, range of media owned, and the spread of the ownership/management base. The global reach also enhances the validity of a political economy perspective on media. The globalization is complex, in which access to technology and to means of distribution produces an exchange model of cultural production. But not everything sells globally, and technology allows cultural diffusion as much as cultural imperialism.

 

Social culture社会文化

 

The mass media is dependent on the large population, and the social culture is quite important for the media companies to understand and to be based on. The social culture covers a wide range of factors including nationalism, race, religion, gender, class, behavior, value and so forth.[7]

 

As the time goes by, the culture differs. The classes of the society become complicated, with many different levels, different levels of people usually have different needs and demands. The mass media is going to meet most of the needs of these people. While the western and eastern cultures become increasingly mixed in case of the media globalization, the local culture still has a chance to keep its independence and its own characteristics. For example, the media market in China, more and more foreign companies are coming to compete in the Chinese market, the consequences are constructive rather than destructive from its local cultural perspective. Cultural hybridization other than homogenization, on the contrary, it is expected that the influences are growing, however, the local culture will respond to the influences on the basis of their judgment, acceptance and so forth.[8] The media industry will be influenced by both local cultures as well as international cultures. As a result, such as China, it is said there is a complex novel reciprocal interaction between global and local.#p#分页标题#e#

The mass media should comply with the social cultures, and meet the most of people’s needs and demands. There are some critical relationships between the mass media and social culture as follow:
 

The mass media are the carriers of the social culture.

They are common in the audiences i.e. the public.

The mass media meet the social culture’s needs and demands, i.e. new, fast, especially television is one of the most effective tools to communicate the social culture; also the internet is effective too.

They have the similar features in commercialization, technology, organization, standardization and so forth.

However, they are not always in the similar way as follow:

The mass media may have negative impacts on the social culture.

The mass media may limit the social culture.

The mass media weaken the functions of social culture.

The mass media control the social needs.[9]

 

Conclusion结论

 

From the above three important factors, it is found that the mass media industry is quite different from other businesses. The political government, economic media globalization, as well as social culture determine the differentiation of the mass media industry from the perspectives of power, economy as well as culture.

 

In all, the mass communication is not normal business, as the above factors involved, make it complex and difficult to control. When doing the business in mass communication, it is therefore necessary to analyze more factors in terms of politics, economics, culture and so forth.

 

 

Extra research额外的研究

 

The author is most interested in the globalization and the cultural issues. With this interest, further research will be conducted. The research targets on the how the globalization of the media industry will influence the cultural issues of the nations.

 

Another interest is on the focus media. Based on the mass media, there are some problems occurred on the related issues, such like blog, it is now becoming more and more important. The mass media is not as strong as before. More and more people begin to write their own point of views in their own blogs. This is so-called focus media. The further research on the focus media is necessary, even it is much more complicated, as the individuals are more complicated to be researched and analyzed than the mass or public.

 

References文献参考

 

Alison Alexander, Media Economics: Theory and Practice

 

Open University Press, 2005, Media and Society, pp8-9

 

PHD candidate, National University of Singapore, Xu Minghua, Globalization, Foreign media and local response in China#p#分页标题#e#

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