Mass communication is one of the most important spheres of influence that shapes and forms social opinions, informs mass society about current news, political and economic changes, and cultural innovations. The new media marks a new stage in mass communication development which opens new opportunities and challenges for society and the state. The new media sees information exchanged as an economic commodity( Hirst and Harrison, 2007: p. 379). While information has been bought and sold since the dawn of history, only in recent years has it become a commodity in its own right, competing with manufactured goods and agricultural commodities in commercial marketplaces. In the history of mass communication, it is possible to distinguish three main stages: ethic-legal paradoxes, techno-legal time-gap, and surveillance society, The new media is characterized by technological changes and changes in ideas and ideals of the society, new legal rules and regulations affected the world.
Ethico-Legal Paradoxes
Since the beginning of the 20th century, there was enhanced interconnectedness among information technologies and institutions. Improved information flows and often more homogeneous industries result. Ethic-legal paradoxes mean differences and contradictions between laws, regulations, and media decision-making. In many cases, media violates ethical and morals rules to find a sensation or unveil the private life of famous people. For instance, it is unethical to intrude into the private life of political leaders but before presidential campaigns media does everything possible to find striking details about the personal lives and habits of candidates (even if it is immoral and unethical). Also, it is possible to mention such phenomenon as muckraking: intrusions in private life are unethical but permissible. Muckraking represented the whole era in journalism marked by sensations and exposure (the 1920s-1940s). Some view the muckrakers as conservatives, others see them as liberals; some call them anxious middle Americans, others say they were shrewd profiteers. Just as there is no consensus on how to understand the Progressive Era in which they wrote, there is no agreement on how to understand muckraking itself. The muckrakers were not satisfied with simply observing the social process. They felt the need, through their journalism, to become active participants. Later in their careers, some of the muckrakers would leave journalism and join political movements (Bagdikian 1987, p. 34).
Journalists must shape and phrase their reports according to the level of understanding of the intended audience. The point of reporting the news is to convey the essence of what has happened in a way that can be easily grasped and thus constitute a basis from which to assess what has happened. Thus the level of comprehension that a story presumes is of the essence. Focusing on the understanding of the intended audience as a regulative ideal encapsulates the point of journalism: to render complex events comprehensible, within given time constraints. What is required of the journalist will vary according to both the audience addressed and the nature of the story covered. These variations can have a great impact on the context and message of the story, its ethical and moral side. For instance, many newspapers and TV channels are biased against certain political parties or political leaders presenting their views subjectively and one-sidedly (Greene 2002, 10). The regulative ideal of the impartial journalist enables us to pick out a significant flaw in unethical journalism: a disregard for the truth in favor of the values, prejudices, or beliefs a journalist or news organization merely presumes to be true (Hirst & Harrison 2007, 380). If her story had not been presented as factual, but rather in the style of New Journalism, an imaginative re-creation of what life might be like on Washington’s streets, then there would not have been such an outcry (Frohne & Katti 2000, p. 9).
The ethical-legal paradoxes are that the task of the media is to highlights news and events impartially but subjectivity and self-interest are the main factors that affected modern media. The danger is an ever-present one, especially in the field of political journalism, as there is often the lure of access to privileged information offered by those figures with a particular viewpoint to push. The danger of being drawn into the same circles, the feeling of privileged access, the attraction of the personalities, and even friendships can lead to professional failure because a journalist is thus drawn in maybe emotionally too close, too secure, and have too much vested interest in maintaining a relationship to report things objectively (Spragens 2003, p. 67).
Techno-Legal Paradoxes
The next stage of development is marked by changes in information technology and information interchanges that occurred in the 1970s. Information societies usually are defined as nations in which the workforces consist primarily of information workers — men and women engaged in producing, processing, and distributing information or information technology (Spragens 2003, p. 5). All predict a radical change like work and in the distribution of workers. The internet and computers were the main driven points. Despite the benefits and advantages proposed by technology, it creates problems and challenges for mass media and communication. Techno-legal paradoxes can be explained by the fact that it is difficult to define the areas the technology can be used for and create a regulatory regime to manage and control the use of technology (Frohne & Katti 2000, p. 9).
Those producing the tools of technology include manufacturers and assemblers of products from radio and television receivers to computer hardware and software, photography equipment and supplies, and electronic devices of all kinds. Those selling the products of information technology are even more diverse (Bagdikian 1987, p. 38). They presumably range from retailers selling books, videotapes, and the like to information entrepreneurs such as those offering directories of all kinds. The same sort of process influences information organizing and delivery systems. Computers have grown in capacity and sophistication at an accelerating rate. More advanced computers already are being applied in the design of successor generations (Donk et al 2004, p. 56).
Newspaper, magazine, and television applications have become quite common, for example, within organizations of all kinds. Specialized newspapers, magazines, and television channels also serve an increasing number of special interest audiences. Cable television systems offer channels dealing exclusively with news, weather, sports, religion, and shopping, to name only a few. Magazines and newspapers address virtually every vocation and avocation known to humanity. For instance, it is difficult to control pornography and TV violence, messages, and images popularized by the media. In many cases, the fragmentation process that persists among channels of mass communication is a product of media economics (Donk et al 2004, 81). Stripped of journalists’ rhetorical references to the public good, the mass media are judged by those who support them on their ability to “deliver” specific audiences. The process requires that media organizations develop content that induces consistent readership, listening, or viewing.
Surveillance Society
The next stage of the new media development is connected with CCTV technologies and mass surveillance (since the 1990s). Modern technology is not neutral. CCTA monitors who are accessing web pages because they publish details of the most regular visitors, all of which are large institutions rather than identifiable individuals. However, it is clear that CCTA also retains the e-mail addresses of individuals who access their sites and the pages they have visited. CCTA has confirmed that such information is held and permanently stored for statistical and security purposes. The rules of relevancy governing newsworthiness are associated with audience expectations and legitimized in terms of audience desire. For the provincial and local press, this means casting themselves as providing something different to the national broadsheets, which at the top end of the market at least, focus on affairs of state, international relations, and the few sporting clubs that dominate the elite super-leagues and premier divisions (Donk et al 2004, p. 34). A vivid example of a surveillance society is an eyewitness cameraphone posted on YouTube. Also, while a news story may have national or even international significance, the news value for the local press is almost exclusively determined by its ability to be couched in parochial terms. And of course, the proposal to place CCTV cameras on town center streets is unquestionably a local story which has salience for all the local citizens who venture into the town center because they will be on film.
In sum, the history of mass communication and the new media development closely connected with legal regulations, rules and laws, and technological innovations which change the communication process. On the one hand, techniques perfected in commercial communication channels are applied to the benefit of specialized audiences, but on the other hand, these technologies violate the rights and freedoms of the audiences. The ability to weigh up the evidence impartially, to write a story open to confirmation or falsification by the evidence, and to draw out reasoned conclusions rather than being led by mere intuition, feeling, or commitment, is the essence of good journalism. The ideal of impartiality should help mass media to pick out what the audiences should be wary of when considering the danger of reporters and journalists getting too close to their lives.
Bibliography
- Bagdikian Ben. 1987, Media Monopoly. Boston.
- Hirst, M. & Harrison, J. 2007, Communication and New Media. Broadcast to Narrowcast, Oxford University Press, Melbourne.
- Greene, R. 2002, While Frenzied Interest in New Media. Afterimage, 29, p. 10.
- Frohne, U., Katti, Ch. 2000, Crossing Boundaries in Cyberspace? the Politics of “Body” and “Language” after the Emergence of New Media. Art Journal, 59, p. 9.
- Donk, W., Loader, B.D., Nixon, P.G., Rucht, D. 2004, Cyberprotest New Media, Citizens and Social Movements. London: Routledge.
- Spragens, W.C. 2003, New Media Millennium: Federal and State Executive Press Aides and Ambition Theory. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.