Mass Media Communication: Mass Communication as an Economic Good

Lutz M. Hagen () and Christian Schäfer-Hock
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Lutz M. Hagen: Dresden University of Technology
Christian Schäfer-Hock: Ausländerrat Dresden

A chapter in Handbook of Media and Communication Economics, 2024, pp 659-683 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Mass communication is understood as the technically mediated transmission and publication of information to a large audience scattered in space and time. In economic terms, mass communication can be understood as the satisfaction of entertainment and orientation needs, realized by means of mass production by media companies and economic markets. Mass communication markets are characterized by various imperfections, externalities, and economic peculiarities, which essentially result from the indivisibility of information and the hybrid and public nature of mass communication. Mass communication as a social phenomenon has been closely connected to the most important processes of social change since the beginning of the modern era and can even be counted among their essential causes. External effectsExternal effects of mass communication markets have strongly shaped processes of social change ever since. In the course of the digital revolution, mass communication is converging with telecommunications. Mass communication is changed by this and, in particular, individualized, but does not disappear.

Keywords: Information economics; Mass communication; Public sphere; Joint production; Market imperfections; Externalities; Digitalization; Public goods; Merit goods (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-658-39909-2_60

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