The term “mass
communication” is a term used in a variety of ways, which, despite the potential for confusion, are usually
clear from the context. These include a) reference to the various activities of the mass media as a group, b) the use of criteria of a concept, “massiveness,” to differentiate among media and their activities, and c) the construction of questions about
communication as applied to the activities of the mass media. Significantly only the third of these uses do not take the actual process of communication for granted.
“Mass Communication” is often used incorrectly to refer to the distribution of entertainment, arts, information, and messages by television, radio, newspapers, magazines, movies, recorded music, and associated media. This general use of the term is only appropriate as designating the most commonly shared features of such otherwise disparate phenomena as broadcast television, cable, video playback, theater projection, recorded song, radio talk,
advertising, the front page, editorial page, sports section, and comics page of the newspaper. In this usage “mass communication” refers to the activities of the media as a whole and fails to distinguish among specific media, modes of communication, genres of text or artifact, production or reception situations, or any questions of actual communication. The only analytic purpose of the term serves is to distinguish mass communication from interpersonal, small-group, and other face-to-face communication situations. Another use of the term involves the various criteria of massiveness, which can be brought to bear in analyses of media and mass communication situations.