Mass communication is the term used to describe the academic study

of the various means by which individuals and entities relay

information through mass media to large segments of the population at
the same time. It is usually understood to relate to newspaper and
magazine publishing, radio, television and film, as these are used both
for disseminating news and for advertising.

Five characteristics of Mass Communication have been identified by

Cambridge University’s John Thompson which is explained below: -

1. Firstly, it comprises both technical and institutional methods of

production and distribution.

2. Secondly, it involves the commoditisation of symbolic forms as the

production of materials relies on its ability to Manufacture and sell
large quantities of the work.

3. Mass Communications third characteristic is the separate contexts

between the production and reception of information.

4. The fourth is in its reach of those far removed in time and space in
comparison to the producers.

5. Finally, Thompson notes fifth characteristics of Mass

Communication which involves information distribution. This is a one
of many form of communication whereby products are mass produced
and disseminated to a great quantity of audiences.

Mass media denotes a section of the media specifically designed to

reach a large audience. The term was coined in the 1920s with the
advent of nationwide radio networks, mass-circulation newspapers and
magazines. However, some forms of mass media such as books and
manuscripts had already been in use for centuries. Mass media includes
Internet media (like blogs, message boards, podcasts, and video
sharing) because individuals now have a means to exposure that is
comparable in scale to that previously restricted to a select group of
mass media producers. The communications audience has been viewed
by some commentators as forming a mass society with special
characteristics, notably atomization or lack of social connections,
which render it especially susceptible to the influence of modern mass-
media techniques such as advertising and propaganda.

Newspapers developed from about 1612, with the first example in

English in 1620;[2] but they took until the 19th century to reach a mass-
audience directly. During the 20th century, the growth of mass media
was driven by technology, including that which allowed much
duplication of material. Physical duplication technologies such as
printing, record pressing and film duplication allowed the duplication
of books, newspapers and movies at low prices to huge audiences.
Radio and television allowed the electronic duplication of information
for the first time. Mass media had the economics of linear replication: a
single work could make money. An example of Riel and Neil's theory.
proportional to the number of copies sold, and as volumes went up, unit
costs went down, increasing profit margins further. Vast fortunes were
to be made in mass media.

In a democratic society, the media can serve the electorate about issues
regarding government and corporate entities .

Purposes

Mass media can be used for various purposes:

• Advocacy, both for business and social concerns. This can

include advertising, marketing, propaganda, public relations,
and political communication.
• Entertainment, traditionally through performances of acting,
music, and sports, along with light reading; since the late 20th
century also through video and computer games.
• Public service announcements.

Different types of Mass Media are Television, Radio, Cinema,

Internet, Newspapers, Magazines, Journal, Other Print Media (like
pamphlets, brochures and posters) and Outdoor Media (which includes
bill boards, signs, flying billboards, skywriting and blimps).

Creating an identity in today's media drenched world is not a simple

task. With a turn of a magazine page or an easy flip of the TV channel
there at our disposal is a huge array of potential identity replicas.
In contemporary society, identity is continuously unstable; it must be
selected, constructed and created with reference to inevitable
surrounding media traditions. There are a variety of mediums from
which people can pick and access information from such as radio, TV,
Internet, or even cell phones. Consequently, the media holds a very
powerful capacity to set a social issue for mass audience to assume and
talk about. Often, media do not intentionally set the agenda and resolve
the pros and cons of that particular matter, so it repeatedly causes
terrible consequences towards public as well as establishes 'moral
panics', which can sometimes direct to mob violence. This writing will
argue that identity is a social construction, managed primarily by the
contemporary media and created in relation to others and is it
continually being changed in order to keep up with the altering society.

An individual's identity is formed by society in which media plays a

predominant role. There is a daily interactive relationship between the
subject and the object, that is, human agents and the conditions of their
subsistence, respectively. Theories of the individual emphasize on
differences between people and deem these differences as natural.
Individuals are "constituted" as the possessors of positions throughout
the effects of social relations. Alternatively, other theories of the topic
concentrate on people's general experiences in society through
watching TV, surfing the internet or reading the newspaper. It is these
general experiences that are the most significant way of distinguishing
who we are. Thus, subject identity is a social construction, not an
ordinary one.
When we connect with the media, we act and are acted upon, use and
are used by the system. .

Positive Influences
Positive influences of mass media can be seen from several aspects or
points of view:

1. From media technology side itself

2. From the side of the owner and sponsor of the media
3. Unintended influences of the media technology and sponsors

a. The influences of media technology

 Media technology makes the reduces the distance between

human beings. The world is smaller due to increased communication
and access to information.It makes human being closer to each other in
terms of space and thinking. We are exposed to a broad range of ideas
and thought from all kinds of people from all over the world.

 Media technologies allows us as to take part ‘virtually’ in

occasions and activities in other parts of the world. Through the media
we know immediately about earthquakes, tsunamis, avian influenza
outbreaks, etc that strike any areaon earth. We know about the results
of champions league which is tacking place far away in Europe.

 It allows us to learn more easily and faster by using the internet.

 It help us to get the best results of pictures and sounds.

b. The Influences of the owner and sponsor

 Men can use the media to create and invite the people concerned
with certain world issues like AIDS, drug abuse, mass killing,
totalitarian government, etc.

 Media can help to create a positive and educated opinion. Media

can be used to fight for freedom, truth and justice.

 Media can help us to relax by listening music, dance, etc.

c. Unrealized influence of media.

 Media can create a new cultures

 Media can changes people’s way of thinking about life, culture,

existence,etc.

 Negative Influence of Media

a. Negative influences caused by the media technology itself:

 Information is power and those who control the media empires

have great power and a great responsibility to use that power positively.
Those who have power over the media have real power in the modern
world.

 Media could create new cultures which change the old and
original ones from the community. This could be both good and bad

 Media could create new cultures which change the old and
original ones from the community. This could be both good and bad

b. Negative Influences that caused by the owner and sponsor

 Media is business. In order to exist media providers must make a

profit. The owners and sponsors tend to create a media environment
that is driven by materialism, consumerism, and hedonism.

 Media can create the wrong perception of prosperity. Prosperity

is made out to be having an excess of material goods (cars, houses,
jewelry, etc). Men are not measured by their character and dedication
but by what things they have in life .It is promoted by advertising in
most kinds of media.
 Media can create stereotypes of beauty and style which is then
imitated by citizens, like fashion and hairstyles, for instance.

 Media can create a sensation of sex, violence, and horror which

may be popular with the audience.

 The owner, ruler, and media sponsor can make up any trick for
their own business and politics interest.

c. Unrealized negative influence of media

 People’s daily schedules and work schedules can be interrupted

if most of our time is used by listening to music or watching TV.
Communications between family members can also be reduced.

 The trend towards urbanization creates a constant flow of people

coming from the villages to the city and is at least partly caused by the
unrealistic glamour of urban life as shown on TV.

Meaning of advertisement
•The word advertising is derived from Latin Words ‘Ad’ and ‘Verto’.
•Ad – towards
•Verto – I turn
•Literally it means to turn the people’sattention to a specific thing.

Definition-•Advertising is any form of paid non-

personal presentation of ideas,
goods, or services for the purpose of
inducing people to buy.

Function of advertising
 To differentiate the product from
their competitors
• To communicate product information
• To urge product use
• To expand the product distribution
• To increase brand loyalty and preference
• To reduce overall sales cost
• To increase demand of product or sercvise
Advantage of advertising
 For manufacturers
• Increases and stabilizes the sales turnover
• Maintains the existing market and explores the new
• Control product prises
 For middlemen
• Quck sales
• Minimum efforts
• Sales forecasting
• Publicity

 For consumers
• Driving force in decision making
• Saves good deal of time
• Get information they want

 For society

• Uplifts the living standard

• Generates gainful employment opportunities
• Provides new horizons of knowlwdge
• Upholds the culture of nation

Limitations
• Limited capacity
• Rigid
• Unbelievable
• Conditional

Who uses advertising?

 Several kinds of organization use advertising as a

medium of communication
 Among them are manufacturing ,trading,servise
firms
 Also non profit and government organizations.

Categories of advertisement

A. Public awareness advertising

B. Product advertising
C. Consumer advertising
D. Industrial product advertising
E. Service advertising
F. Corporate advertising
G. Public relation advertising

Rational appeals in advertising

Emotional Appeal

An emotional appeal is related to an individual’s psychological and

social needs for purchasing certain products and services. Many
consumers are emotionally motivated or driven to make certain
purchases. Advertisers aim to cash in on the emotional appeal and this
works particularly well where there is not much difference between
multiple product brands and its offerings. Emotional appeal includes
personal and social aspects.
1. Personal Appeal

Some personal emotions that can drive individuals to purchase products

include safety, fear, love, humor, joy, happiness, sentiment,
stimulation, pride, self esteem, pleasure, comfort, ambition, nostalgia
etc.
2. Social Appeal

Social factors cause people to make purchases and include such aspects
as recognition, respect, involvement, affiliation, rejection, acceptance,
status and approval.
3. Fear Appeal

Fear is also an important factor that can have incredible influence on

individuals. Fear is often used to good effect in advertising and
marketing campaigns of beauty and health products including
insurance. Advertising experts indicate that using moderate levels of
fear in advertising can prove to be effective.
Humor Appeal

Humor is an element that is used in around 30% of the advertisements.

Humor can be an excellent tool to catch the viewer’s attention and help
in achieving instant recall which can work well for the sale of the
product. Humor can be used effectively when it is related to some
benefit that the customer can derive without which the joke might
overpower the message.

Sex Appeal

1. Sex and nudity have always sold well.

Sexuality, sexual suggestiveness, over
sexuality or sensuality raises curiosity of
the audience and can result in strong
feelings about the advertisement. It can
also result in the product appearing
 interesting. However use of sex in types
of advertising appeals can have a
boomerang effect if it is not used
carefully. It can interfere with the actual
message of the advertisement and
purpose of the product and can also
cause low brand recall. If this is used
then it should be an integral part of the
product and should not seem vulgar. The
shift should be towards sensuality.

Music Appeal

2. Music can be used as types of

advertising appeals as it has a certain
intrinsic value and can help in increasing
the persuasiveness of the advertisement.
It can also help capture attention and
increase customer recall.

Scarcity Appeal

3. Scarcity appeals are based on limited

supplies or limited time period for
purchase of products and are often used
while employing promotional tools
including sweepstakes, contests etc.

Rational Appeal

4. Rational appeals as the name suggests

aims to focus on the individual’s
functional, utilitarian or practical needs
for particular products and services.
Such appeals emphasize the
characteristics and features of the
product and the service and how it
would be beneficial to own or use the
particular brand. Print media is
particularly well suited for rational
appeals and is often used with good
success. It is also suited for business to
business advertisers and for products
that are complex and that need high
degree of attention and involvement.
Masculine Feminine Appeal

Used in cosmetic or beauty products and also

clothing. This type of appeal aims at creating
the impression of the perfect person. The
message is that the product will infuse the
perfection or the stated qualities in you.

Coulours and advertising in newspapers

Newspaper is the very old medium. In addition, people are in a habit of

taking day’s first cup of tea sip with newspaper. For the promotion of
business through newspaper advertising, there are three physical
criteria to consider - distribution, size and readers. It is easy to target
millions of people at a moment.
Now, various types of ads are in newspapers like display ads, classified
ads, situation vacant, property ads, matrimonial, remembrance ads etc.
Through this, you can convey any kind of message, service or good.

Newspapers are not so flexible. With the help of pictures and words,
only you can disseminate your message to your target audience. In
newspaper, ads can only use limited special effects like font size and
color. Therefore, the advertiser must have such creativity or
imagination to express message, which differentiate ads from their
competitors. The advertising world revolves around the principle of
attraction. Whatever the product, in the end, the advertisement should
attract the consumer. How do ads manage to attract attention? One of
the first things you notice about any advertisement is the colors. In ads
that don’t have a multimedia advantage (like ads in the newspaper or
on a billboard), the colors and design are the only things holding the ad
together. Colors, therefore, are one of the things that advertising experts
study, especially since they can have so many different connotations in
different contexts. It’s essential to use colors to project an image of the
product—is it a warm, family oriented-thing? Is it a bright, colorful
kiddy thing? Is it a novelty? Is it a cool teen thing? All of these factors
are portrayed by the color schemes of advertisement, which connects
the colors to the simple, hardcore human factor.

Black and white, colour or spot colour Finally there is full colour. This
can be very effective — however, there are a number of downsides.
First and foremost is the expense. Full colour comes at a price and
generally it is quite a lot more than the other options (I have seen it
double the price). Secondly, most newspaper printing is reasonably low
quality and as a result the reproduction can be quite poor. The paper
used is the cheapest available, which is pretty reasonable for a product
with a shelf life of perhaps one or two days before it is used to wrap
vegetable peels, so full colour advertisements can be a little flat in
appearance. Sometimes they can be a little blurry. In all fairness the
printing presses, papers and inks being used are getting better but they
are nowhere near the quality of glossy magazines. Advertisers are
therefore often disappointed with their full-colour newspaper
advertisements because they had unrealistic expectations of the quality.
Have a look through your bundle of newspapers and see the quality for
yourself.

Full-colour advertisements can be used very well in newspapers but the

advertisement needs to be well designed and the fact that the printing
process is not as sharp as laser printers or glossy magazines needs to be
taken into consideration. Use colour to draw attention to the
advertisement rather than highlight what is in the advertisement. Make
youradvertisements less complex colour wise and don’t clutterthe
advertisement.

Creating and designing a successful product advertisement, or any kind

of successful advertisement, is not an easy task. It requires years of
experience in the field, but it also requires a great deal of knowledge.
No, we are not talking about technical knowledge here. Anybody can
learn how to use Photoshop, or any other tool pretty fast, but it takes
years to learn how to successfully transfer the message, grab the
attention, or provoke the reaction. That’s where colors play the
important part, because people react to colors in a predictable way.
What we will do here today, and within following weeks, is not
something revolutionary or new, as it has been done countless times
before. We will merely provide you with a simple guide for each
commonly used color, how people react to it, and hopefully give you
some good examples along the way.

Use of color in most design for marketing and advertising is dictated by

certain obvious requirements; the need to reflect a specific brand, as
well as the attempt to communicate a certain mood dictated by the
product itself.

Apart from advertisements also colours play an important role in

everyday life and have significant impact in our general life. The power
of colours cannot be denied, so as it is soul instance of the life on
earth.Each colur has its own significance and has a pscyological impact
on us. Different perceptions are also their according to significance of a
colour. Colour has a impact on choice we make.

Our reaction to color is instantaneous and this lens is a quick look at

general responses based on research, historical significance of color
and word association studies.
I have also included links to color personality tests that may give you
some insight into your own color associations as well as how you react
to different colors.

For diff people simple meaning of color is diff..due to diff in their

age,sex,demography,culture.

Meaning of blue colour

• Depth and stability → colour of the sky and sea

• Symbol of freedom
• Symbolic of cleanliness, technology and security
• Associated with tranquillity, wisdom and loyalty
• Slows human metabolism → calms and soothes
• Masculine colour
• China - associated with immortality
• Hindus - the colour of Krishna
• Jews - holiness

Meanig of red colour

Red has more personal associations than any other color.

Recognized as a stimulant red is inherently exciting and the amount
of red is directly related to the level of energy perceived. Red draws
attention and a keen use of red as an accent can immediately focus
attention on a particular element.eaning of red colour

• Highly erotic
• Symbol for violence blood and war
• High visibility so used for road signs
• Indicates courage

Meaning of white colour

2.) White is innocence. It gives out a clean aura. This can be applied in
areas of medicine or health-related ads. But this can also be used to
connote fashion. White, on the other hand, is the cool airy shade of
purity. Used a lot to depict cleaning substances, it’s also often used to
give a calm look to a room shown in an advertisement. Modern and
abstract, white remains a favorite where clear-cut lines play a role.

Meaning of green colour

5). Green looks fresh and healthy. It has a calming effect and it is easy
on the eyes. Green is the nature color. In today’s world, green has a
very strong association with the get-green fad and environment
movements. As a result, green portrays health and nature more than
ever. Along with this, green has the nurturing and tranquil effect, as it
happens to be the easiest color for the eye to see. Green is synonymous
with harmony, and is a very, very utile color in advertising. If you can
recollect those green check marks and the red x marks you see in
advertisements, you’ll agree that green also stands for the right thing. In
some contexts, green is like the green traffic light signaling go; so
that’s another way ads can subtly manipulate green. Of course, the
lighter shades of green are strongly connected to freshness and vitality.
A lot of revitalizing creams and refreshing drinks like tea are advertised
in green. On the other hand, green is also associated with money and
financial power—think about the US dollars—meaning that sometimes
it can be used to depict fast-earning schemes and investment plans.

Meaning of yellow

• Colour of sunshine
• Energy,optimism,joy ,hope, warmth
• Seen before other colours whwn placed aginst black
• Symbol of spontaneity
• Dull yellow is associated with dullness, sickness, deceit, decay

Asia- symbol of royalty and sacrednessYellow is a two-faced

advertising color. Although it is the most eye-catching color, yellow
can be fatiguing to the eye and overbearing to the mind. The use of
yellow for important things, though, can be a good property as well.
Yellow is a happy, energetic color, that sometimes symbolizes
rejuvenation; hence the use of the color yellow in beauty products. But
somehow, the color remains distasteful to men, maybe because of its
conventional “cheap” connotation. Yellow is also used to show the
scrumptious attraction of buttery food products, the sunshiny
cheerfulness of toys and such, and the happy child atmospheres in
general. People tend to associate yellow to sunshine and happiness, so
towards that effect, it remains a good advertising color tool.

The list of colours and their significance doesnot only end here but
from the above we can be introduced to the interesting and fasinating
world of colurs which have a great impact on human lives because
colurs have a pscyological as well as symbolic meaning which also
effects our lives.
Significance of the study