Task 8: From mass media to personal media

Marika Lüders in her article Conceptualizing Personal Media explores the concepts of personal media and mass media from many perspectives. It is very comprehensive and is based on various theories about this field.

I liked the way author tries to answer the question and draw a vague line between the two types of media. She argues that many previously valid perceptions about both mass and personal media are outdated, for example, the perception that mass media is associated with asymmetric one way communication and personal communication is mutual between individuals. It made me think: what really is a mass media in the 21^st century? It is clear that the mass media communicational has become more symmetric than before. We have different kinds of interactive mass media, such as interactive TV, possibility to post our comments and feedback in almost every website and call to radio and television and express our opinion. I personally tend to treat internet as a mixture of mass and personal media, because it has never meant to be and isn’t private. There are many technologies that are used for individual and mass media purposes, for example Facebook is a huge social network that is used for personal communication between friends and acquaintances; however, it is also a very successful business tool for many people that can advertize their products via social media channels.

I agree with the author that one of the most successful ways to draw an ambiguous borderline between the two types of media is to look at the person’s purpose of using it. But again – a blog can be both personal and a mass media product, and sometimes it is very hard to distinguish where the particular case belongs.

To my mind we are now in a transition process between the separated parts of media to a one hybrid part with different subdivisions. Personally I think that the digital communication will have more mass media features than it does now. So we can wait and see what new types of businesses will arise based on this developing tendency.