SUMMARY OF INTRODUCTION TO MASS COMMUNICATION

BY STANLEY BARAN

PART ONE

CHAPTER ONE
Media Communication Culture and Media Literacy.

In this chapter, mass communication is defined as the process of creating shared meaning among
two or more people.it criticizes the one way model of communication as it does not wholly reflect
the communication process, rather it agrees with the theories of Osgood and Shramm which states
that there are no permanent receiver or sender, rather an interchanging of roles exits.
It defines culture a learned behavior of members of a given social group. He suggests that culture
helps us categorize and classify our experiences and also helps define us, our world and the people in
it. According to him culture cannot survive without communication, as communication is the only
means that it can be transferred. Therefore the media plays a very special role in the culture of the
people.
Furthermore he defined media literacy as the ability effectively and efficiently comprehends and use
any form of mediated-communication. In a bid to explain media literacy further he traced the history
of writing starting from the oral period when the meaning of language is specific and local. As a result
communities were closely knit and their members were highly dependent on each other for all
aspects of life knowledge was passed orally and people were shown and told how to do things.
Having a good memory was also crucial as myths and history were intertwined.
He writes that more than 5000 thousand years ago, alphabets were developed independently in
several places around the world. Picture based appeared in Egypt, Sumer, and urban China etc. he
noted that the syllable alphabet as we know it today developed slowly and was aided by greatly by
ancient semantic cultures and eventually flowered in Greece around 800 B.C. like the Sumerians the
Greek perfected the easy alphabet of necessity.
As modern writing developed, meaning and language became more uniform, communication could
occur over a long distance and long periods of time with knowledge being transmitted in writing,
power shifted from those who could show others their special talent to those who could write and
read them.

Elements of medical literacy

i. A critical thinking skill enabling audience members to develop independent judgment.
ii. An understanding of the process of mass communication.
iii. An awareness of the impact of the media on the individual and the society.
iv. Strategies for analyzing and discussing media messages.
v. An understanding of media content as a text that provides insight into ones culture.
vi. The ability to enjoy, understand and appreciate media contents.
vii. Development of effective development skills
viii. An understanding of the ethical moral obligation of media practitioners
According to him, for a person to be media literate means the ability to understand content, and
filter out noise and the ability to distinguish emotional from reasoned reactions when responding to
content and to act accordingly.