Means of communication are such as print, radio, TV. The mass media are defined as large-scale organizations which use one or more of these technologies to communicate with large numbers of people (‘mass communications’). The mass media has two important sociological characteristics: first, very few people can communicate to a great number; and, second, the audience has no effective way of answering back. Mass communication is by definition a one-way process. Media organizations are bureaucratic and corporate in nature.
Media outputs are regulated by government everywhere but restrictions vary from very light advisory regulations (for example no cigarette or nudity on TV) to the most comprehensive forms of censorship in totalitarian societies.
Mass media dominate the mental life of modern societies and therefore are of intense interest to sociologists. From the earliest studies in the 1930s the main concern was with the power implicit in new media technologies especially radio and television. TV and radio can be used for propaganda and other dangerous things.