Agency as a Consumer of Mass Communication, Essay Example

Mass communication consists of all media such as books, film, television, radio, newspapers, internet, and magazines that address mass audiences. Being an agency could be thought of as the freedom to make choices as one sees fit. Thus, agency as a consumer of mass communication means the freedom to freely choose among the available print and electronic media such as magazines, TV, internet, and radio.

It used to be that consumers have limited choices. If they wanted live news with video, TV was the only option and those who preferred news in paper form had few options in the form of local newspapers. Moreover, the communication from the content provider to the audience was often one-way. But this has changed due to tremendous progress in media technologies, especially internet-enabled onesover the last few decades. Not only they have several options when it comes to news channels or entertainment channels but they can also access the news on internet anytime they want. In addition, much of the paid-content in the past can be accessed for free. Moreover, content providers do not engage in one-way communication only but have been forced to listen to consumers.

Marketers who used to target consumers randomly through TV ads and had no way of gauging consumers’ reaction or the effectiveness of the ads now continuously engage with consumers and take their feedback seriously. Thus, content providers now listen to consumer and not dictate to them as they used to do in the past. Consumers send the signal in many ways such as through their purchase activities, by interaction with content providers and marketers through social media, and even organizing online campaigns that quickly go viral.