Class Response: Mass Communication

   On August 19th, our journalism class has a lesson on mass communication and the five steps to spreading an idea. What  I found most interesting about this conversation is that we learned a very similar concept in my AP Human Geography (APHG) class at almost the same time. In Journalism 1 (J1), We started our conversation by talking about what mass communication is, but what I'm mainly interested in talking about is the mass communication process. The mass communication process is the system that ideas are spread by and it mainly describes how an idea is conveyed through a product such as a movie, TV show, newspaper, magazine, or a post on the internet.

   In APHG, the spread of an idea across a distance is called diffusion. Diffusion is different compared to mass communication because it refers to the spread of anything across any space, while mass communication must occur by a means that foregoes time and space, meaning that it can be accessed even if the creator of it is dead, or lives halfway across the world. Mass communication also requires no immediate feedback. But one thing that these two have in common is the ability to reach a mass audience.

   In addition to talking about the process, in J1 we also discussed filters and impediments, which are ways that an idea is not spread effectively. In APHG these are called barriers to diffusion and in my opinion, this is where the two concepts are the most alike. The three barriers to diffusion are physical, sociocultural, and psychological. These respectively correspond to he three filters that we've talked about in J1! Two of them even have the same name: physical and psychological. The only one that doesn't match up perfectly are sociocultural (APHG), and informational (J1). A sociocultural barrier is when a difference in culture or status prohibits the spread of an idea, but an informational filter is when one doesn't have enough information to understand a new idea or message. An example where both of thee are true would be a language gap.

   In short, APHG and J1 are more similar than I would have imagined and I expect there to be more crossovers similar to this in the future.