The Mass Media

News travel faster today than ever before. We see, hear and read more about world events than any other generation in history. Radio, newspapers, TV - nobody can live without them. But today also the Internet has become very important for business. The mass media play an immensely important part in modern society as a source of information and entertainment. In former times people generally found out what was happening in the world via the press, nowadays the main sources of information for most of us are TV, radio and the internet.

Media is the plural of medium, which means a channel through which information is transmitted. But thats not very exact. It doesnt tell us what kind of channel or what kind of information. For example: are TV advertisements a part of the media?

Some people say yes, others say no. And what about films, novels or songs? If you include all of them, a list of the media looks like this: advertising, book publishing, cinema, newspapers, magazines and comics, radio, TV, video. But if you limit your definition of information to facts, the list becomes shorter: The Press, Radio and TV. These are the news media which tell us, day by day, whats happening in the world.

Well - it varies from country to country. In some cases there are very few limits on what journalists can report. Other governments are slightly less liberal. And then there s a third group of countries which control their media very strictly. In cases like this, broadcasters and journalists who break the law are frequently sent to prison or sometimes even killed e. g. in Serbia-Montenegro, the Iran and the Ukraine. Several factors make a good newspaper story. First - obviously- it must be NEW. But since TV can react so quickly, this is often a problem for newspapers.

They usually respond to it in one of these ways: ? Or by printing completely different stories which TV doesnt broadcast But the stories also have to be dramatic, because people dont want to read about ordinary, everyday life. Because of this, many stories involve some kind of conflict and danger. This is one reason why such a lot of news seem to be bad news.

Next, theres human interest. People are interested in other people - particularly lives of pop stars, actors, politicians and royalty - all appear regularly in certain newspapers.

Newspapers Newspapers came into being in the 16th or the 17th century. The first newspaper known was published in 1605 in Wolfsburg, Germany. One of the oldest newspaper knows is the The Times from London, it was first published in 1748. Very important German newspapers are FAZ, SZ, and NZZ. Newspapers international very important are NYT and Washington Post in the USA, the Corriere della Sera in Italia and Le Mond and Liberation in France.

In Austria the most important newspapers are The Standard and Die Presse. But Die Kronen Zeitung is read by more people than TS and DP together. Various facts ...