mass media

noun

plural of mass medium

: forms of communication designed to reach many people : the newspapers, radio and television stations, websites, etc., through which information is communicated to the public

—used in singular or plural constructions

The twentieth century had been dominated by media that delivered the same material to millions of people at the same time—radio and newspapers, movies and television. These were the kinds of one-to-many, top-down mass media that Orwell's Big Brother had used to stay in power. Now, however, Americans were catching sight of the internet. They believed that it would do what earlier media could not: it would allow people to speak for themselves, directly to one another, around the world.

—Fred Turner

… the country had a really robust history of regulating media in the public interest, a really strong conviction that mass media were so important to—not just the economy—but to politics.

—Gary Gerstle

In countries where mass media information is unreliable or heavily controlled, social networking sites serve to communicate the truth.

—Hitoshi Mitomo

Film festivals and Hollywood movie studios alike have been racing to keep up with the trends in mass media, where cell phones, video games, and subscription streaming services are changing the ways consumers engage with screens and stories.

—Noel Murray

Because of these changes in mass media and also the emergence of radio, this was the first time when the entire country could really obsess together over a scandal out of Washington, D.C., in nearly real time following each day's developments.

—Carolyn Kellogg

also : the information or content so communicated

In her 1951 The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt argued that a tyrannical regime, wielding bureaucracy and mass media, could achieve permanence by conscripting the citizenry's consciousness.

—George Will

There were various advantages in point-to-point communication—particularly as new forms of transportation arose—but radio also came to be seen as a way to transmit mass media.

—Vince Guerrieri

Examples of mass media in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Perhaps the very definition of the avant-garde, in the age of mass media, that emerges from Hoberman’s chronicle is the power of a work to create discourse that’s a more enduring experience, a more enduring emblem of the artist’s thought, than the work itself. —Richard Brody, New Yorker, 6 June 2025

Its distribution partner is currently with digital Korean conglomerate Kakao’s mass media wing, Kakao Entertainment. —Jeff Benjamin, Forbes.com, 1 May 2025

Public Opinion considers mass media and propaganda, and the role that emotion plays in political life. —Megan Garber, The Atlantic, 29 Apr. 2025

In keeping with the times, McPherson used mass media to make herself into a master of soul craft and self-promotion, laying hands on thousands of sick parishioners and preaching practically seven days a week to thousands more until her death, in 1944. —Casey Cep, New Yorker, 14 Apr. 2025

Inspired by the Ancient Greek pantograph, a tool used to scale drawings, Gee reinterprets stamps (one of the earliest forms of mass media) by digitally enlarging and reimagining them. —Felicity Carter, Forbes.com, 3 May 2025

While this was previously done by courting relations (and other forms of lobbying) with the major mass media outlets, the rise of the Internet, together with the near-universal proliferation of smartphones, has led to an almost direct line of communication between leaders and society. —Agustino Fontevecchia, Forbes.com, 20 Apr. 2025

Research published in The Lancet confirms that mass media campaigns—when done right—can lead to measurable shifts in public health behavior across entire populations. —Jeetendr Sehdev, Forbes, 24 Mar. 2025

Netflix’s move into daily soap is part of the streamer’s strategy to position itself as a mass media outlet in key territories, notably through live content and factual entertainment. —Elsa Keslassy, Variety, 26 Nov. 2024

Rhymes for mass media

• comedia
• commedia
• cyclopaedia
• cyclopedia
• hypermedia
• intermedia
• multimedia
• encyclopaedia
• encyclopedia