Synthesis 2000: A unified model of mass communication

Abstract

The early history of the study of mass communication was generally involved in the process of building models that would fairly represent the mass mediated experience of who says what in which channel to whom with what effect. These models tended to lack isomorphism in that they were not a good fit for the actual communication experience. Consequently, research attention shifted from the development of holistic models to the development ones that more accurately reflected various individual elements within a mass mediated experience or that reflected the use of a particular medium. It is argued in this article that the results of these attempts have disembodied the mass communication process such that there is no longer a unified manner in which to regard the mediated communication experience. The authors posit that the world of the 21st century will present a different kind mass communication milieu, which will require a different kind of conceptualisation of mass communication. From a synthesis of the major theories of mass communications, the authors propose a unified model of the mass communication process.