The function of the mass media can be analyzed in relation to the role they play for society or it can be discussed about the influence they play, or should play on it and question the relevance of its content, be it formative, educational, informative, news, entertainment or fun.
Without demerit of these important aspects, nor of others that are also transcendent - such as the question of media ownership and the scheme under which the government grants the concession of their use - it is also possible to reflect on the role of the media. mass media from a very practical point of view, based on a simple communication model.
A sender originates an idea that he considers valuable to transmit, so he delivers it to people with adequate talent to turn it into a message whose content, thanks to a producer, acquires the necessary form so that it can be disseminated by being reproduced by a communication medium that makes it reach an audience which, attending to the message, assigns a meaning to it.
Within this model, the role of the media is to distribute, transmit, deliver the content of the communication to a desired audience. To achieve this, you must be able to generate an audience, capture and maintain their attention so that the message effectively reaches you.
The value that the media adds during the communication process results, then, from the quantity and quality of the audience that it is capable of reaching. The audience generated by each medium is diverse in terms of quantity and quality. The quantity ranges from the massive to the selective, while the quality can be measured in terms as specific as the sociodemographic profile of the public, or as subjective as their degree of attention, credibility they give to the medium, etc.
The central point is that the value of the communication medium results from the audience it generates. Your role, then, is to generate an audience. Without an audience, a means of communication is meaningless. In fact, in the communication model, the medium is the link that unites the audience with the previous participants: producer, talent and sender of the message.
Generating an audience, capturing and maintaining their attention is something that the media achieves by conceptualizing, developing, producing and disseminating editorial content, which can be focused on training, education, information, news, entertainment, fun or a mixture of them.
It does not make much sense to argue about which of these contents are more or less desirable, nor to argue about whether or not the media have a social responsibility in this regard, if it is not clear beforehand that a media outlet, thanks to its editorial content, must be able to generate an audience.
In other words, the first important discussion is not about whether or not there should be a means of communication that educates or trains in terms of values, religion or politics; nor about whether or not they should be allocated financial resources from the public. The first discussion should revolve around how to make that editorial content generate an audience with the quantity and quality that justify it.
Whenever you have the attention of an audience with a certain quantity and quality, it is possible to insert advertising and propaganda messages into the editorial content of the media.
The medium offers a specific audience the benefit of editorial content of particular interest and, at the same time, offers advertisers the benefit of having the attention that audience can give to their communication messages.
The five participants that intervene in the communication process are clearly identifiable in the case of advertising that is made to products and services aimed at the last user or consumer: the issuer is the advertiser, the advertising agency is the talent and the three others are the producer of advertising material, the media and the audience or target audience.
The medium then has as its first responsibility to program, develop and produce material that captures the attention of an audience due to the characteristics of its editorial content.
And the medium's second responsibility is to ensure that advertisers, who insert a message or advertisement along with that editorial content, access the audience.
Since neither the editorial content of the media nor its propaganda or advertising content is of general interest, the role of the media is better defined as generating an audience with specific characteristics of quantity and quality.
The content programming must be subject to the characteristics of the audience whose attention it is intended to attract, favoring a diversity of topics related to the specific interests of the public.
The function of the media, aimed at its two types of client, consists of generating a specific audience by offering the benefit of an attractive editorial content for it, at the same time offering the advertiser the benefit that it represents for him to have the attention of that audience.
Just as the attention of the audience justifies the existence of the communication medium, so also the measurement of the quantity and qualities of that audience is what justifies its way of operating. Editorial content is developed to capture that number and quality of audience; advertisers are charged for inserting messages based on the quantity and quality of the audience.
In practice, the media invoice paid inserts on the basis of size, expressed in terms of time or space, for example seconds of airborne broadcast on radio or television, or centimeters of print in newspapers and magazines. A price structure like that responds very well to the operating conditions of the media, but it has little to do with the degree of attention of an audience.
The lack of investment of resources in the development of editorial content translates into a poor medium, of little interest and served by a low audience; The lack of promotion of this medium and the absence of information about the characteristics of the audience that serves it translate into an anomaly, by not allowing advertisers to know the ability of the medium to reach that audience.
The media would have no better sales pitch than their detailed audience reports; the fees to be paid would be set based on the quantity and quality of that audience, possibly established post facto. But the most important thing is that when you think in terms of audience, you start by justifying the medium's very existence.
I do not mean, for example, that there is no justification for radio or television stations with social, cultural or informational editorial content as opposed to purely commercial content. What I want to say is that it is not justified that these stations do not have the amount and quality of audience that justifies their existence.
In other words, we should not fight simply because subsidies exist and are allocated to them, wherever they come from. We must fight for these stations to develop content in such an attractive way that they attract the attention of the audience. The challenge is how to develop that content.
Not thinking in terms of audience means a lack of respect for the public, which usually translates to poor editorial content that, in turn, is reflected in a lower number and quality of audience, reducing the value of the medium before advertisers. its audience and society itself.
