Bradley J. Hamm

Technological Change, Agenda Challenge and Social Melding: mass media studies and the four ages of place, class, mass and space

Media can be classified broadly into four historical ages: the ages of newspapers and place, magazines and class, broadcasting and mass, and Internet and space. During the rise of each of these new media, diverse groups strive to gain access to it so they can voice and further their particular agendas. As communication technology develops, however, media tend to evolve from being shared by many receivers to being used primarily on individual levels. As the Internet connects more people globally and provides opportunity for unparalleled diversity in space, it also has the capacity to isolate users who form communities online only with others like themselves. This article examines the historical development of mass media in the US and explores contemporary research directions. Future communication scholars can draw upon past communication theories, but it is argued that the era of mass communication is over. Hence, those theories - and new ones - must be crafted to cross traditional boundaries of scholarly inquiry and thus to more effectively observe and explain modern communication and social system interactions.