Uses and functions of mass media

Social Movements The Role and Influence of Mass Media Mass media is communication—whether written, broadcast, or spoken—that reaches a large audience. This includes television, radio, advertising, movies, the Internet, newspapers, magazines, and so forth. Mass media is a significant force in modern culture, particularly in America.

Bring fact-checked results to the top of your browser search. Funerary and commemorative uses In cultures in which burial customs are important, anthropomorphic masks have often been used in ceremonies associated with the dead and departing spirits. Funerary masks were frequently used to cover the face of the deceased.

Generally their purpose was to represent the features of the deceased, both to honour them and to establish a relationship through the mask with the spirit world. Sometimes they were used to force the spirit of the newly dead to depart for the spirit world.

Masks were also made to protect the deceased by frightening away malevolent spirits. This mask was named the Mask of Agamemnon by the German archaeologist and excavator of Troy Heinrich Schliemann, but it is now known to predate the death of Agamemnon. The funerary mask served to guide the spirit of the deceased back to its final resting place in the body.

These masks were commonly made of cloth covered with stucco or plasterwhich was then painted. For more important personages, silver and gold were used. Among the most splendid examples of the burial portrait mask is the one created about bce for the pharaoh Tutankhamen. In Mycenaean tombs of about bce, beaten gold portrait masks were found.

Gold masks also were placed on the faces of the dead kings of Cambodia and Siam now Thailand. Gold funerary mask of the pharaoh Tutankhamen inlaid with lapis lazuli and coloured glass, New Kingdom, 18th dynasty c. Courtesy of the Egyptian Museum, Cairo.

The mummies of Inca royalty wore golden masks. The mummies of lesser personages often had masks that were made of wood or clay. Some of these ancient Andean masks had movable parts, such as the metallic death mask with movable ears that was found in the Temple of the Moon Huaca de la Luna at Moche, Peru.

The ancient Mexicans made burial masks that seem to be generic representations rather than portraits of individuals.

Death maskMetallic death mask with movable ears from the Moon Pyramid in Moche valley, Peru, 3rd—8th century ad. Courtesy of the American Museum of Natural History, New York City In ancient Roman burialsa mask resembling the deceased was often placed over the face or was worn by an actor hired to accompany the funerary cortege to the burial site.

In patrician families these masks, or imagineswere sometimes preserved as ancestor portraits and were displayed on ceremonial occasions. Such masks were usually modeled over the features of the dead and cast in wax. This technique was revived in the making of effigy masks for the royalty and nobility of Europe from the late Middle Ages through the 18th century.

Painted and with human hair, these masks were attached to a dummy dressed in state regalia and were used for display, processionals, or commemorative ceremonies.

Effigy maskEffigy mask of Edmund Sheffield, duke of Buckingham,painted death mask with human hair. With wax or liquid plaster of parisa negative cast of the human face could be produced that in turn acted as a mold for the positive image, frequently cast in bronze.

In the 19th century, life masks made in the same manner became popular. Another type of life mask was produced in Al-Fayyum region of Egypt during the 1st and 2nd centuries ce.

The skull masks of the Aztecslike their wooden masks, were inlaid with mosaics of turquoise and ligniteand the eye sockets were filled with pyrites. Holes were customarily drilled in the back so the mask might be hung or possibly worn.

In Melanesiathe skull of the deceased is often modeled over with clay, or resin and wax, and then elaborately painted with designs that had been used ceremonially by the deceased during his lifetime. Therapeutic uses Masks have played an important part in magico-religious rites to prevent and to cure disease.

In some cultures, the masked members of secret societies could drive disease demons from entire villages.

The Functions of the Mass Media

Among the best known of these groups was the False Face Society of the Iroquois people. These professional healers performed violent pantomimes to exorcise the dreaded gahadogoka gogosa demons who plagued the Iroquois.

They wore grimacing, twisted masks, often with long wigs of horsehair. Metallic inserts often were used around the eyes to catch the light of the campfire and the moon and to prevent surprise attacks from invisible evil forces.

Sri Lankan maskDisease devil mask rakasa from Sri Lanka worn to cure sufferers of deafness. Courtesy of the trustees of the British Museum Masks for protection from disease include the measles masks worn by Chinese children and the cholera masks worn by the Chinese and Burmese during epidemics.

The disease mask is most developed among the Sinhalese in Sri Lankawhere 19 distinct sickness demon masks have been devised. These masks are of ferocious aspect, fanged, and with fiendish eyes.

Gaudily coloured and sometimes having articulating jaws, they present a dragonlike appearance.Even so, we can classify the functions of mass media into two categories: general functions and specific functions.

Under the general functions of mass media, following points are incorporated. a. What are the major Functions of Mass Communication? Payal Kamat With the advent of technology, these jobs were taken over by the mass media.

The major functions of mass communication are: 1. Surveillance. 2. Interpretation. 3. Transmission of values. 4. Lineage. 5. Entertainment.

Functions and Theories of Mass Communication. Previous. Next. Learning Objectives. Identify key functions of the mass media.

Pioneers of mass production methods

Which function of mass media (information, interpretation, instructive, bonding, or diversion) do you think is most important for you and why? Which is most important for society and why?

Functions of the Mass Media: Though there are two main functions of mass communication, which are overt and latent functions of communication, six specific functions of the mass media could be identified here.

These are: benjaminpohle.comance of the environment. This is the collection and distribution of information within and outside a . Functions of Mass Media We know that mass communication is a process of disseminating messages to a large number of audiences through some forms of technology a t a time.

And s ome forms of technology used to disseminate messages is the mass media. More About Body Mass Index (BMI) This animation shows a comparison of the change in BMI for a given height and varying weights.

It also shows why BMI is inaccurate for muscular people.