MMC CH. ONE

legacy Media

The traditional media, often owned by large corporations. These
may include newspapers, magazines, book publishers, and television networks.

Communication

How we socially interact at a number of levels through messages.

Intrapersonal Communication

Communication you have with yourself. How you assign meaning to the world around you.

Interpersonal Communication

Communication, either intentional or accidental, between two people. It can be verbal or nonverbal.

Group Communication

Communication in which one person is communicating with an audience of two or more people. The roles of communicator and audience can be changing constantly.

Mass Communication

When an individual or institution uses technology to send a message to a large, mixed audience, most of whose members are not known to the sender.

Media Literacy

Audience members’ understanding of the media industry’s operation, the messages delivered by the media, the roles media play in society, and how audience members respond to these media and their messages.

Mass Media

The technological tools, or channels, used to transmit the messages of mass communication.

Sender Message Channel Receiver (SMCR) or Transmission Model

A dated model that is still useful in identifying the players in the mass communication process.

Sender

The source of messages that go out through mass communication.

Message

The content being transmitted by the sender to the receiver.

Encoding

The process of turning the sender’s ideas into a message and preparing the message for transmission.

Channel

The medium used to transmit the encoded message.

Receiver

The audience for the mass communication message.

Decoding

The process of translating a signal from a mass medium into a form that the receiver can understand and then interpreting the meaning of the message itself.

Noise

Interference with the transmission of a message. This can take the form
of semantic, mechanical, or environmental noise.

Ritual Model

A model of the mass communication process that treats media
use as an interactive ritual engaged in by audience members. It looks at how and why audience members (receivers) consume media messages.

Publicity Model

A model of the mass communication process that looks at how media attention can make a person, concept, or thing become important, regardless of what is said about it.

Reception Model

A critical theory model of the mass communication process that looks at how audience members derive and create meaning out of media content as they decode the messages.