Communication means the system that allows people to be in contact. However, in everyday language, the idea of a means of communication is applied exclusively to technological means or devices that allow the transmission of information to a large number of people, such as the press, radio, television or traditional mail . For this reason, there is talk of the mass media.
The media as a social phenomenon
Life in society without the means of communication would be possible, although it was difficult to imagine how we could live without e-mail, social media, press and television.
The media as a whole basically fulfill a general function: that society has information for its own interests (to have an opinion formed, for leisure or for consumption).
It can be said that there are two faces in the media. The first is positive, as it allows citizens to have at their disposal valuable and useful information to make their own decisions. However, the media have the possibility of exercising a power that is not always worthy, such as informational manipulation, propaganda or the hidden interests that are part of its very nature and the character of humanity in general.
Media communication has changed our reality as human beings
Now we can know a war perfectly, know what happens in any part of the world and exchange information immediately with the simple movement of pressing a button or clicking on the computer . Although we are used to all this, it is still an authentic technological and social revolution.
All media have their own evolution and development. In this sense, some of them have become obsolete or are on the way to extinction, for example, the fax and the telegraph. Most of them change and grow at great speed (let’s think of today’s television that has nothing to do with what it was decades ago). In any case, the great revolution in the means of communication came with the internet , which made it possible, through personal computers, to have other means of communication at our disposal in an integrated manner, such as the press, radio and television.
When we think about the media, we cannot help but remember the countless social repercussions. To illustrate this idea, we can highlight the world of education , in which traditional books and whiteboards are being replaced by tutorial videos, podcasts and other tools that have emerged from the latest media.
