Mass Communication

“Of all of our inventions for mass communication, pictures still speak the most universally understood language.”

The words in the title are written by Walt Disney and the statement says all. All things are difficult before they are easy. Waking up in the morning, cleaning off the sleep from your eyes, you first want to read a newspaper or a magazine updating and acquainting you what happened and where, which brand is up, which company is inclined towards downward slope, what happened in the lives of bollywood and Hollywood actors, the economy’s status, the performance of the stock market, mergers and acquisition, launching of the new products, the companies partnering together, the interviews of the great business tycoons, big-cheese, big enchilada giving an insight into a particular sector, who is more sizzling, the latest flick you can watch with your friends, the Page 3 news, the academic courses, the upcoming or the latest institutes and colleges and many more.

In today’s time such circularization and communication of the information has become quite important which definitely invigorates, vitalizes and sparks our interest to the fullest extent. Everyday, every time, there is something new happening around us and we are shown the ropes so that we can individualize and belong to the particular information communicated to us either by print or electronic media.

Mass communication: Hold-on. Re-think your career

Mass communication. It’s understood. Isn’t? A great field comprising print like magazines, newspapers, and journals and electronic like television, radio, pictures, internet and so on. The field is far reaching, mattering much, momentous and importunate. It has unleashed various sectors which offer plethora of job opportunities and you can create your own way once you know that it is present, past as well as future time medium. Today’s consumers are always looking for something new and when you are in this sector you need to educate them and depict the information in a truly memorable way because they are sharing their time with you so obviously the result should be fruitful, productive and efficient. The illustrious, the imposing and the incomparable field is definitely worth-considering. You need to hold-on and re-think which way you are going and then plan accordingly because it’s time to throw together multiple career options and synthesize them to form the right chord. The various career options available once you acquire a degree in mass communication are:

Journalists: speak aloud. Speak truth

You cover the world with your words, disseminate information via print as well as electronic media, adopt the right tone of voice to make your information comprehensible to your audience, fabricate the same story for different audience in different styles, producing sensational news when there is some commotion, vibes and susceptibility in the world, and adjust your style of writing when informing about some patriotic themes and reminding people of the struggles faced by our freedom fighters. A great field to enter into. You need to be razor sharp, quick witted, sharp-witted, having adjustable pitch, clear-cut and precise box of information to communicate your message to the audience.  Then, the ball is in your court. Once you are over with the degree, the multiple sectors open doors for you. Speak aloud, speak truth, and start incepting the career.

Copywriters: see the wood for the trees

The brains of the copywriters are always clouded with words, language basics, ideas, concepts and strong-selling messages that they produce for the clients. Their imagination and ideas are always in the process of realignment, rearrangement, relocation, and repositioning. Slight element of doubt and sometimes self-criticization proves to be helpful when you have to see the woods for the trees to get down to brass tacks, understanding the concept what’s in it for me? And then you know very well how to make the unbelievable as believable, inanimate as animated, the raw as defined and thus start inviting a lot mass traffic to your writing ads serving to induce the consumers and chasing their eyeballs hence after. Your message should be crystal clear that should have the extreme and thoroughgoing impact. You need to be aware of what’s happening around you, spend at least 40 minutes to read a magazine or any stuff, if not reading, then flipping through the pages would serve the purpose, understand how to play with the use of words, tickling and delighting the interests of the audience and thereby extorting money from their wallets only by speaking few words. Isn’t it spectacular?

Producers and Directors: Presenting true to life

With a good script, a director can produce a masterpiece and similarly with a bad script, he can ruin the expectations of viewers and watchers. To be a director, you need to produce something commendable, laudable, appreciating, praiseworthy and creditable so that the expectations of the spectators don’t go down and topple with lamentation. All you need is to pick a story you want to construct and present it to the audience, make your production team consisting of talented writer, stage manager, lighting designer, choreographer, script writer, the actors and actresses and many more, possess leadership qualities, clear thoughts, plenty of time to discuss the themes, objectives and mission with your team members. “Your audience gives you everything you need. They tell you. They tell you everything and direct you better than anything else.” When you are done with all these tasks of a director, you need a producer who would bring sponsorships for the shows and organize other responsibilities like booking halls for auditions and rehearsals, follow-up with the team members, informing them about the specified time, date and venue for rehearsals and other practicalities to be followed thoroughly. After acquiring a degree in the same field, you need to work with a pool of vast experience and strength, have tremendous passion, zeal and an avid and fervent attitude to rise at the top. You need to be incensed and fuming with power, courage, different concepts, fantasy, a differentiated performance and obviously apprehending the consumers’ needs and expectations. Chase them with their favorites. You can be a dark horse who rises unexpectedly and you never know when you get a good break.

Graphic designers and visualizers: the pictures proclaim thoughts

The graphic designers and visualizers track changes happening around the world. With their sheer creativity, imagination, inventiveness, artistic and brainy thoughts, they invigorate the brand, make it speak the language of the consumers, and with explosive passion and bravado write to people’s hearts as well as their heads. The visualizers build strong concepts and invite fantasy to blossom the brains. The concept of exclusive and not exclusion is played before the audience. They observe a lot just by watching and whisper the promise in soft voices. From without words to mixing and matching, from compare and contrast to repetition and accumulation, from omissions and suggestions to provocations, the designers paint pictures with their forever habit of exploiting the rules and going the extra mile, producing something extraordinary, exceptional, perceptive and perspicacious. If you are a daydreamer, always busy with making your own movies and concepts, and there is continuous and spontaneous flow of images and ideas that conjure up your thinking process, then be confident to become a visualizer or a graphic designer. Obviously, you cannot constrict, curb or cork your imagination process because you can kill a man but not an idea. It’s simple to understand. Many advertising or the media channels are always in the process of hunting and tracking down the talented candidates. Start grooming your fantasy and enter into the pool of creative arena, showcase your capability which is truly unanticipated, unpredictable, unheralded and eye-opening.

ENTERTAINMENT AND MEDIA: SELL LIKE SIZZLERS

The entertainment and media seek to tap into our aspirations and glamorize otherwise mundane areas of our lives. Entertainment and media capture the audience without letting them know that they have been captured. They make the brands soar upwards, convey the information in crisp and direct language because they know that they are advertising or publicizing a product or a service and not promising the moon. From animation to cinema, from theatre to circus, from comedy to comics, from dance to music and so on, the entertainment industry has overloaded our brains and if we gain information, it is through entertainment and media. You learn about what your competitors have been up to in terms of promoting their brands and you start learning valuable information pertaining to diverse areas. The field offers wide range jobs like of a producer, a director, a make- up artist, a script writer, a journalist, a press reporter, an assistant, a graphic designer, a visualiser, a website designer and the list is endless. Your amazing and ultimate prowess lies in the fact that you can apply your knowledge and come up with something unique and the different, which make you a distinguishing personality into this field. Because Freshness is accepted while the unpleasant is discarded. You can never be a rolling stone but can steal the audience with your sheer doggedness and determination. If you are in a showbiz, you can run a show and steal the audience with your sheer capability.

WRAP-UP:

Don’t fiddle around aimlessly after you are over with your exams. Learn more and get more. Today, the field of mass communication has become unbounded, unconfined, unending and wide open. There are numerous and abundant career prospects. Even if your spirits are drooping and dwindling and you are quite baffled where to go and what to opt for, you can master yourself by igniting your interest in the field of mass communication. It is not what you like but it is what actually motivates you. After all, you have to spend money and spending it without thinking provides no guarantee of success. Start asking right questions and you will learn the right answers. Then start stepping up your career with extreme caution, careful attitude and forethought. You would surely get your cup of tea, as the sector is capacious and colossal.

“Without television and mass communication, that knowledge wouldn't exist. So I think it actually has the possibility of turning people into more understanding and more empathetic people”.

John Warnock