July 2, 2020 | Adamas University

What is the Utility of Studying Microeconomics?

Rituparna Das (Adamas University, India), Saurav Roychoudhury (Capital University, USA)

Pertains to

Economics for Engineers in B.Tech. Programmes
Managerial Economics in MBA Programmes
Microeconomics in B.A./B.Sc Economics Programme
Advanced Microecnomics in M.A./M.Sc. Programme

Microeconomic principles are the building blocks, the base of all other areas of economics and so microeconomics is an important tool in the science of decision-making. It imparts the art of reasoning or finding logic with a rational perspective and cost-benefit analysis for what or why we should or should not do when we make our choices in everyday life. For example, for a married working couple planning for a child, a choice would be between IVF (in vitro fertilization) process and the traditional way. Microeconomics will help them decide between which process to choose by weighing the direct costs (hospitalization and associated costs) and opportunity cost (potential loss of pay) with the IVF process that involves a cost of about a couple of lakhs of rupees but getting the child in a relatively painless way. A relevant application of microeconomics for a prospective student is which profession she should choose out of several alternatives like engineering, medical and business, or relatively more research-oriented alternatives like economics and finance – that is, they might prefer a career that will likely to get them on a track to a high earning specialty. In microeconomic terms prices are always relative and so even high tutorial fees might seem more than manageable when the student sees a career that can help them earn those fees many times over in the future. Microeconomic theories play a major role in designing financial plans by individuals as well as businesses and corporate entities. Numerous transactions incurred in the financial markets every business day are results of microeconomic applications. Broadly the following microeconomic considerations are kept in view before carrying out any transaction – that every rupee we spend or every unit of anything we receive by spending money has some opportunity cost in terms foregoing some other next best thing – the benefit or utility we get after spending money or foregoing something against receipt of money should not be less than the value of money spent. Similarly, microeconomics also looks at externalities – that I need to pay a penalty or bear a cost if my transaction harms others and I should be compensated if another person’s or entity’s transaction harms me. For example, when I smoke amidst my friend circle I harm my non-smoking friends by making them passive smokers and causing them costly tobacco-related disease that will cause physical and financial pain, or when I drain the waste water of my leather factory to the nearest river, I am killing fish which can cause scarcity of fish and driving the price of fish up.

Noteworthy applications of microeconomics in other fields of direct relevance to our personal and social spheres of life that have fetched noble prizes are in the areas of portfolio selection that applies to personal finance, transaction theory in legal disputes involving two or more parties that is directly relevant to our social life and also its application to non-economic spheres of human behaviour like sociology and criminology. The modern portfolio theory of Harry Markowitz advises us how we can maximize return out of a basket of financial assets subjected to a specific risk or minimize the risk of a portfolio of assets given a return level. The portfolio selection theory of James Tobin inquires into the way the households and businesses use microeconomics principles to choose among various real and financial assets to hold or liabilities to discharge in their portfolios based on the weighted risks and expected rates of return. The transaction theory of Ronald Coase shows the way for the litigants to resolve a legal dispute at a minimum cost. Gary Becker’s research on family studies the economic considerations underlying a marriage or divorce, raising of children by parents and so on. Several distinct areas are born out of microeconomic applications as independent courses in various degree programmes in economics, the familiar ones to name in the Indian context are financial economics, law and economics, managerial economics and business economics. Pari passu with financial economics, economics for engineers, environmental economics, and health economics is fast gaining importance.

Financial economics deals with the basis of an investor’s preference for one asset over another, valuation or pricing of an asset or a portfolio of heterogeneous assets, modelling or analysing the risk of an asset or a portfolio, calculating rate of return on an asset or any engineering project, conducting cost-benefit analysis of the project, calculating cost of capital, comparing the costs of the alternative modes of financing for an asset or a project, valuation of the derivative contracts used in managing the risks of the assets, calculating the risk premium of an asset with respect to a risk free asset, calculating issuer-specific risk, quantifying systematic risk, ranking the nations based on assessment of country risk or sovereign risk, calculating sensitivity of asset returns toward changes in benchmark returns, calculating volatility of returns on assets, calculating provisions against future losses and so on.

The course on law and economics covers economic considerations underlying various transactions in properties, solving property related disputes, drafting contracts, challenging or suing a tort, calculating damages, investigating into the reasons behind a crime and application of the theories of efficiency, disparity, competition, and regulation to choose the most efficient, cost-effective and fair course of action.

There is a growing practice of treating managerial economics and business economics to be same, but such practice till date could not reach a position of unanimity. Those who do not involve such practice think that managerial economics provides the microeconomic basis of making decisions pertaining to an individual firm or a corporate or business entity whereas business economics focuses on the interrelationships between economic factors influencing a particular business and the economic factors pertaining to the entire business environment.

The bottom line is that microeconomics affects all aspects of our life. Individuals, businesses, and the Government make thousands of big and small decisions each year guided by the principles of microeconomics. Individuals seek to maximize their satisfaction when they go out and shop for anything- choosing a restaurant to eat, buying a phone or choosing an education etc. Businesses set prices and make other decisions based on microeconomics. The price that a consumer will pay depends on the supply of a good, and how much other consumers will pay for it. The Government applies (or should apply) microeconomic principles for public finance to find the most effective way for resource utilization to deliver public goods.

So, microeconomics is essential for students who plan to choose a career in finance, management, law, medicine and engineering need to study microeconomics.

Career prospect of B.Sc.(H) Statistics & Data Analytics

In student’s life at 10+2 or Higher Secondary is like a turning point. ‘What is after 10+2 or Higher Secondary?’ is the common question among the age group of students studying in 10+2 standard. Each year this question hit lakhs of students not only India but around the globe. The confusion overcomes among them concerning career prospects, job opportunities as well as their passions. Interests, motivation, and goals are prime factors students must consider while choosing a programme from the range of programme available in India to pursue after 10+2. Many counselors say that the lack of proper information about the programmes available in India and their career prospects. Which is somehow responsible for the confusion amongst the student. To build a good career and for prosperous life style, one must well planned and prepared at this moment. Students from science background in 10+2 with Mathematics are mostly choosing a programme from top domains including Engineering, Architecture, Applied Science, Business Studies, Design, Law, Economics, Media, Management, and Social Sciences, and many more. In our experience of teaching career more than a decade, it has been observed that a large number of students are being stuck in confusing mode after taking admission in a particular programme. After admission they still looking for a better opportunities and not having faith in the present programme. It has been also observed that most parents as well as students like to choose such programmes most that have large job prospects. Now a days also some programmes are still having more demanding among the students of 10+2. But in recent time some new field of study in undergraduate and post graduate programmes have been come in light from last few years. Data science is one among those programmes. Worldwide the demand of data scientists is increasing day by day. Most of we have not much clear idea about data science. Frequently peoples ask these two questions:

What is Data Science? and Why to Learn Data Science?

Data science is a multidisciplinary field. It is a combination of mathematics, statistics, computer science, business intelligence, and machine learning techniques. It help us in finding out the hidden configurations from raw data, which may be useful for big business decisions. In data science, both types of data such as structured and unstructured data can be used. Data science may help to predict the trends based on historical data which can be useful for present decisions as well as to finding patterns for predictions to see what effects may look like in the future. Data analytics is a part of data science. Apart from analytics, data science also contains of other sub-disciplines such as machine learning and data mining. The following diagram (Fig1) may help us to understand the scenario,[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Data Science is beneficial to banking sectors, insurance companies, software and manufacturing companies, educational sector, political scenario, social workers etc. For this reason in present scenario data science is so demanding area where students from higher secondary with mathematics or statistics may plan to build their career.

With the amount of data that is being produced and the development in the area of analytics, data science has become a necessity for every companies/ industries. To make most out of their data, different companies from all fields, such as Marketing, Retail, Finance, Information Technology (IT) or Banking are looking for data scientists. This make a huge demand for data scientists all over the globe. As IBM is declaring it as trending job of 21^st century and based on the salary, it is surely a lucrative job for many.

Career Prospects

Data science professionals are often engaged in many IT firms, Technological firms, Business firms, Consultancies, Different industries, Research & Development firms etc. The list of job roles available in several industries within the field of Data Science. Some of the expertise are as follows

(i) Data Scientist: Data Scientist is one of the principal analytics part of big data. They mainly involved in indulgent and exploring data patterns to analyze the impact on businesses.

(ii) Data Engineer: Software engineers majorly eligible for this job role, who are basically involved in the non-analytical part of analysis of big data. Work role for data engineers is more focused on coding, cleaning up data sets, and implementing suggestions and data solutions that come from data scientists.

(iii) Business Intelligence Professional: The job role of business intelligence professional is involved in the market study of various structured and unstructured data and generates reports to analyze the business trends.

(iv) Data Manager: Data Manager mainly involved in the process of organizing of structured data and management of unstructured data. They also accountable for building the structure and database systems that encounter the needs of research and data science teams for the information assembled.

(v) Data Analyst: Data Analyst work with Structured Query Language (SQL) databases, Excel, and other software to analyse numerous categories of data. Then they prepare reports based on that analysis which is to be used to create solutions and make strategic decisions.

Beside these job roles data science has other career openings in different industries as well as educational sectors across the India and abroad.

Data Analyst Scenario in Indian Job market

After successfully completion of this undergraduate programme student may expect their salary to start from Rs.5 lakh per annum, which is attractive as a fresher. In India salary varies from city to city and work experience. A graphical representation given below shows the expected growth of salaries in different year of experience.

How to study?

Basic Eligibility: Students of 10+2 or higher secondary with Mathematics or Statistics as a compulsory subject are eligible to apply for this programme.

Institutions to study

In India undergraduate programme in data science is offers by some universities/colleges in different state including West Bengal. Department of Mathematics, School of Basic and Applied Sciences, Adamas University, Kolkata is running this programme from session 2019-2020.

Why Live in Uncertainty?

Online learning has come to stay for sure and will only increase in value and volume ahead, writes Prof. Ujjwal K Chowdhury. Graphic: Saubhik Debnath

There is despondency in many circles. Naturally, after the worst pandemic of the century has hit the world, with the Amphan cyclone in our part of the world too. Naturally, after a declining Indian economy moving at 4% growth in January has probably hit a negative figure by the end of June now. Natural, when you look at millions homeless by cyclone, after being rendered jobless and penniless by lockdown. Naturally, when you sit idle for a hundred days to finish your unfinished Board or University exams, not knowing when the results will come and when and what you do next.

These are all natural and the reality of the moment. Now, we have two options: just wait and flow with the tide, good or bad, and do not decide anything. Or, taking each day at a time, and focus to do a few things which we need to do or wish to do.

Let me talk to the youths between 18 and 23 years of age, especially those who are giving their Plus 2 finals or are in graduation now, and waiting for the next big leap in their lives.

First thing is to finish your pending exams for which you are waiting for the last 100 days if you are taking the option of remaining Plus 2 exams, and also finish any competitive exams you want to take. But then why waste time waiting and revising at times which you have done a hundred times perhaps. I have my 12-point suggestions for you.

Be a Digital Person:The gear you need is just a good laptop with good memory, a strong WiFi connection at home, and a smartphone with internet connection, and these are now must post-pandemic to pursue any career you choose.
Be a Social Media Persona:with accounts in LinkedIn (to write on serious stuff, follow others in your chosen field of future career, though you are now a learner), in Facebook (for stories and memories), in Instagram (for your visuals), in Twitter (for debates and news-breaks), and start your own blog (whichever area of interest you may have; can be a Vlog also, video blog).
Deep Dive in One Career:Choose a specific field, like first engineering, then AI-ML or automobile engineering or smart city & town planning, etc. If Management, go more specific like retail or banking or leadership or energy management, etc. If law, criminal or civil law, constitutional or cyber law, international or environment law. If media, films or journalism, advertising or PR-Events, photography or digital communication. Similarly in all other fields. Then do a deep dive into the field: what does the broad and the specific ones cover, what are their skills sets, what role in economy and society, what job profiles come out of it, which are the top 20 employers in that in India and a few globally, etc. Get to know about their actual functioning.
Webinars Participation:Attend several webinars on that chosen field or the broad one, interact with experts in the webinars online or offline on the domain to get more clarity. Pandemic has brought in a deluge of webinars, which at times may be tiring, but the selected ones are great for you when you have many questions to be asked in your chosen area, and it is not easy to meet people face-to-face now.
Online Research:Visit websites of the 10 most possible universities to study within your reach and desire, talk to their counsellors and get to know their course details and unique aspects, if any. Make a comparative chart of the same.
Online Learning:Try to identify which online courses you can do or if any university or college is allowing you to do even before the start of the classes. Do that now and try a few more which equips you far better to take up the chosen domain ahead. Online learning has come to stay for sure and will only increase in value and volume ahead. It will make you prepared for self-learning, learning to learn.
Facing Exams:While you prepare for the pending competitive exams, like those of engineering, medical or design etc, you need not lose your sleep on them. The Plus 2 exam is a must one and you must be well prepared for that. Now that the government is not asking necessarily for the Plus 2 exams, it is your call to take it or not, depending upon how your internal exams were. For the rest, keep the focus and make a serious attempt, but be prepared for alternative routes to fulfil your dreams. For example, a specific institute if not available does not mean the end of your pursuit of career.
Creative pursuits must:Creative pursuits must be kept alive, whether it is dancing, singing, music, painting, acting or performing, creative writing, photography, etc. They must be showcased through videos, podcasts, blogs, published work, even your own youtube channel too. One creative pursuit and done seriously is must for everyone to evolve as a holistic right-left brain balanced personality. And this keeps one in a good stead facing failures and challenges at times, which are bound to happen once in a while.
Learn from Role-models:Must identify a few professionals pursuing the same career which you want to get into, people in their late 20s or 30s or 40s. People from different generations with a gap of 12-15 years between themselves have different world-views even if it is in the same broad domain. Hence, it is important to know a few people of different age-groups as role models and examples to follow to get more well rounded perspectives.
Lifetime Career to Multiple Careers:These days we are moving away from a lifetime career concept and often have a second career or move into a different career sometime later after a decade or two in the chosen path. So, always good to have a minor specialization along with the major. For example, someone doing engineering, can also have a minor in management; anyone in law, can also take up a management or an economics minor; anyone in sciences or management, can take up a photography minor. Selecting both major and minor areas in advance shall also be of immense help in real life career-building.
Professional Studies and Career Development:Another big push to your self-development is to go through a course of professional studies which prepares you for facing interviews, conduct group discussions, do teamwork better, under professional needs of any job or career, including the ability to communicate better in English, in your mother tongue and may be in one or more languages (including a foreign language). Alongside, career development calls for going deeper into the industry or sector you want to join in, understanding which are the best skill-needs, attitudinal aspects, trends and major players of that career. The university you select to study must ensure the above two.
EI and teamwork with leadership:Strong emotional intelligence is the hallmark of a strong person in these days of easy frustration and depression. While we must strive to succeed in what we want to do, we need not be bogged down by apparent success parameters so much to fly high with the slightest gain or go deep into depression with one or two initial failures. Both are signs of a weak personality. Equanimity facing failure or getting success, treating the other the way you want him or her to treat you, and being with a smile facing a challenge are hallmarks of a person with a strong EI. And we must always remember to be a leader tomorrow one has to be a good team-worker today, and a good team-player of the moment can become a good leader tomorrow.

The writer is currently the Pro Vice Chancellor of Kolkata based Adamas University, and was earlier the Dean of Symbiosis and Amity Universities, Pearl Academy and Whistling Woods International. He has worked with WHO, Government of India (Textiles Ministry) and Nippon Foundation as Media Adviser, apart from working with several media organisations.

This blog was first published by ABPEducation. Click here to read original article.

Proton Decay…..A candidate for Finite Age of the Universe?

Birth and end of the universe is a challenging problem for physics. The quest started till the known time. Lots of ideas about the creation of the universe came in the course of time till modern cosmology. Most of the earlier Cosmological models describe the universe as static. After the discovery of Cosmic Background Radiation which is thought to be the relic of Big Bang Cosmology, the Big Bang theory of creation of the universe is accepted although lots of questions are yet to be answered like what causes Big Bang or who is the First Mover. Discovery of Hubble law and redshift indicated the universe is expanding. The ultimate fate of the universe is one of the most important searches of present day cosmology. Modern Cosmology provides more and more evidence for the universe with finite life. The scenario of Proton Decay has something to add to this proposition.

Proton Decay:

Proton is a fundamental constituent of matter. Since the discovery of radioactivity in 19^th century scientists are compelled to recognize the fact that not only the radioactive element but much of the matter decays eventually. High energy physics reported the decay of many so called elementary particles. Huge numbers of particles which are composed of more fundamental entities like quarks of different flavours disintegrate into lighter particles. Leptons like muon, tau disintegrates to other particles. Free neutron which is a component of the nucleus also decays with half life ~ 10.3min but it is stable when in the nucleus. The neutron is 0.2% more massive than the proton. The lightest composite stable particle is Proton which consists of two up(uu) quarks and one down(d) quark.

Big Bang theory of the universe is successful in explaining two facts, one is 3-K background radiation as remnant of primordial radiation emitted by Big Bang and the second one is current mass ratio of Helium to Hydrogen in terms of nucleosynthesis in first 100second of Big Bang. The major problem is the explanation of ratio of matter (baryon density) to photon density n_B/n_γ and preponderance of matter over antimatter. Proton Decay was first proposed by Andrei Sakharov in 1967. He put forward three points which are called Sakharov conditions to generate baryon asymmetry of the Universe. He argued that if the universe starts from Hot Big Bang, three fundamental considerations must be taken into account. First is the CP asymmetry which must account for (one of the outstanding problems in modern cosmology) the particle antiparticle asymmetry of the universe via CP violating processes. Second is the non-equilibrium dynamics which accounts for the galaxy formation and third is the baryon number violating decay to account for the baryonic matter and anti matter asymmetry of the universe. The universe is globally anti symmetric in matter. He observed that baryonic matter must decay to explain the origin of baryonic matter of the universe.

All decay processes in nature are abide by some basic interactions and corresponding conservation laws. There are four known basic interactions in nature such as Strong, Electromagnetic, Weak and Gravitational interactions. Conservation laws are critical to an understanding of Particle physics. Standard Model (SM) which unifies electromagnetic and weak interactions is supposed to be the gauge theory of Strong Interaction. SM observes baryon number (B) and lepton number (L) symmetry so that B – L are exactly conserved and a proton is stable in the framework of SM. Grand Unification Theory (GUT) unites Strong, Electromagnetic and weak interactions with quarks and leptons and their anti particles. When strong and electro-weak interactions are unified, quarks and leptons appear as members of the same irreducible representation of gauge group. The gauge boson which mediates the interactions transform quark into leptons or anti-quarks and violate baryon number (B). The unification procedure of GUT resulted in the coincidence of the coupling constants of strong, electromagnetic and weak interactions at a certain high energy known as grand unification scale. In GUT quarks could transform into lepton by the exchange of extremely heavy intermediate particles in the energy scale 10¹⁶ GeV. One of the implications of Grand Unified Theory (GUT) is the prediction that proton decay with a half life ~ 10³²years. Protons being composed of three quarks can decay via exchange of extremely massive particles called X and Y bosons with life time that is 20 orders of magnitude longer than the age of the universe. X and Y bosons can mediate the interactions which violate the baryon number B causing proton to decay.

The prominent decay mode of proton (p) is p→ e⁺ + π⁰ i.e. proton ( a baryon) decays into positron (a lepton) and a neutral pion (meson; Fig.1). There are other decay modes of protons but SU(5) predicts two body decay modes of proton to positron and meson will dominate. The new interaction in the framework of GUT predicts Baryon number and Lepton number violating four Fermions interaction via exchange of super heavy particles. The effective coupling constant of such a type of four fermions interaction is very large and makes the proton decay detectable by present generation experiments.

Experimental Searches of Proton Decay:

Baryon numbers violating decay of protons have studied widely both theoretically and experimentally. GUT predicts protons will decay at a very small rate but quite possibly measurable rates determined by the mass M_X of the postulated gauge boson of grand unifying symmetry with M_X ~10¹⁵GeV. A number of experimental efforts were going on till 1980 to detect the proton decay. The average lifetime of protons is very large but according to quantum physics the time of decay is random and if a tiny fraction of protons decay long before the average lifetime, the decay can be detected. The only requirement is a huge number of protons sources which enhances the probability of detection. Water is used as a source of protons. A proton either from Hydrogen or Oxygen decay into positron e⁺ and π⁰ which eventually decays into two photons π⁰ → 2γ (Fig.2). These showers can be observed in detectors and act as a tool for proton decay observation.

The search for proton decay has been done in Kolar Gold Field (KGF) Mine in South India 2300 meters below the surface of the earth.140 tonnes of iron which can provide 60,000 billion, billion protons, at least six of which are expected to decay annually. The interference due to cosmic ray background radiation has been minimized. The analysis of data puts the limit on the lifetime of protons as ~ 7 x 10³⁰years whereas the Mont Blanc NUSEX detector experiment puts the limit on proton lifetime τ_p ~10³⁰ years. A large water Cherenkov detector was constructed in a deep mine at Park City, Utah. The detector is sensitive to different decay modes of protons. The detector is protected from background cosmic ray radiation of muon and neutrino by natural walls of mines and using active shields. The Water Cherenkov Detector predicts that the bound proton decay to a lifetime ~ 7 x 10³³years. The IMB experiment was done at Morton Salt Mine at Cleveland, Ohio. Observation was made of 1570 meter of water equivalent to 8000 metric ton water Cherenkov detector. They put the limit on τ_p ~ 1.9 x10³¹.

Most recently the experiment on proton decay has been done by Super Kamiokande, Japan which started observation from 1996. It is a large water Cherenkov detector which is the most sensitive detector in the world used to examine proton decay with huge source with 7.5×10³³ protons or 50,000 tons water Cherenkov detector. The proton decays via most favoured channel in p→ e⁺ + π⁰ in several GUTs model. The neutral pion subsequently decays into two photons as π⁰ → 2γ. So three Cherenkov rings can be observed in the detector (Fig 2.). All the particles can be detected by the Cherenkov detector. The detector has made observations for more than 12 years and put the lower limit on the lifetime of protons as >1.6 10³⁴years. Till now there is no concrete evidence of proton decay from any experimental group.

Proton Decay and age of the universe:

Proton decay has immense cosmological implications. Protons which are the basic building blocks of all matter decay into lighter particles and supposed to be unstable. It may have a very long lifetime but still it is finite and cannot exist for ever. So the matter around us which is composed of protons must have been produced no more than a finite time and it cannot be infinite in time. It has been suggested that true eternal life depends on whether or not protons can decay and there may be inexorable decay of matter all over the universe. In billions of years from now the 10 billion galaxies that constitute the known universe may no longer exist. Proton decay has not been detected experimentally till now probably because of the fact that the event is extremely rare. Super Kamiokande observed no event in the limit of 10³³ years. At present time there is neither convincing evidence for believing protons and bound nucleons in nucleus undergo decay nor any good reason for believing that they live forever. No fundamental laws of nature prevent protons from decay. It is based on compelling theory. Science is a way of thinking. Failure of any experiment leads the new way. Thomas Alva Edison once said, ’I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.’ New experiments are being designed. Hyper Kamiokande experiment for detecting proton decay is on line. This experiment aimed to explain GUT and to reveal the evolution of the universe through proton decay and CP violation. Hyper-Kamiokande has sensitivity up to more than one order longer than the current lower lifetime of protons. We are hopeful that Hyper-Kamiokande will discover proton decays and will elucidate the root of materials and mysteries in the genesis of the universe beyond the Standard Model. A Baryon non-conserving process with a small asymmetry in the early universe may make the universe evolve from a symmetric state of matter to an asymmetric state of matter. Symmetry and asymmetry together make our beautiful universe. Universe is full of magical thing beyond our imagination. There are lots of questions to answer and the quest will continue. In the end let us quote from Heisenberg “Not only is the universe stranger than we think, it is stranger than we ‘can’ think”!!

Courtesy : Pictures from Google.

INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF MEDIA AND COMMUNICATION

The pandemic Covid 19 has only proved the importance of communication in our daily lives. Though we practiced physical distancing to keep the virus away, but we were able to communicate with our near and dear ones with the help of technological advancements in communication. Our mobile phones, internet and social media made it possible for us to stay connected. We got all the updates about the happenings in the world from the television, newspapers and other online platforms. The FM Radio channels continued entertaining us. All these are nothing but mediums of communication.

If you have a desire to understand more about how media functions and the world of news, social media and journalism interests you, then this is the right career choice for you. Allow me to acquaint you with some of the most basic concepts related to the study of media and communication. You would study this and much more as a part of your B.A. (Honours) in Media and Communication.

What is Communication?

Communication is the act of transmitting ideas, thoughts, emotions or any other meaningful information which the sender wants to convey to the receiver. We may communicate with spoken words, non verbal gestures like hand movements or signs and symbols. We also need a medium or channel for communicating. You must be familiar with the mediums of mass communication like radio, newspapers, television, internet which have a great role in our daily lives.

What are the different elements of communication?

One of the earliest models of mass communication, Lasswell model (1948) says that the sender, message, channel, receiver and the effect are the basic elements of the communication process.

The most basic elements of a communication process are sender, message, channel and receiver. The sender is the source of the message; the receiver is the person who is receiving the message. The message is the content or information which the sender is disseminating to the receiver through the channel. The channel or the medium is what carries the message to the receiver.

Another very important element of the communication process is feedback. The sender needs to get the feedback from the receiver in order to know whether the receiver has understood the intended meaning of the message. Also, it helps the sender to understand whether the message has the desired effect on the receiver.

What is Mass Media?

The media which we use to transfer messages to the masses, is called mass media or in simple words, the medium of mass communication.

The purpose of communication

So why do we communicate? Communication is the very basic need of human being and with the development of the civilization; the functions of communication have also expanded. Denis McQuail, a communication theorist, in his book Mass Communication theory, describes the following functions of mass communication:

Information:

According to him, we get most of the news and information from the mass media, so that is one of the imperative functions. For instance, during the lockdown, how did you get all the news about the virus increasing in every part of the world? The sources were newspapers, television and the World Wide Web. So, we were dependent on the mass media for every bit of information. Almost every television viewer turned to watch the Prime Minister live to know what he has to say to the nation. Thus, we all are dependent on mediums of mass communication for receiving information about the world around us.

Also, advertising is yet another popular medium for letting the society know about the different products and services which are available in the market. Even during the pandemic, advertisers tried every possible measure to attract the attention of the consumers. Imagine how the big business would run into losses, if the consumer would have no information about the goods they are producing! How would they sell their goods and services?

Correlation:

The medium of mass communication also provide interpretation and explanation of the news and events. The mass media decides what is newsworthy or not.

Continuity:

In transmission of the culture, communication plays a big role. It is through communication only, that we pass on our ideas, opinions, and culture to the next generation. The mass mediums have a great role in shaping the popular culture. The popular culture is most accepted beliefs and practices in the society.

Entertainment

We all are dependent on mass media to provide us with diversion, relaxation and entertainment. The mass media has a big role in providing us with relaxation. During the lockdown, the movie theatres were all closed, thus the audience all moved to OTT platform for watching web series. This led to a boost in the viewership of web series and the business of the online streaming platforms.

Mobilization:

This function of mobilization is to bring the society together and create awareness for a cause. Today, anyone can use the social media to start a mass media campaign and fight for a cause by gaining the attention and support of the society.

Media and communication are vibrant fields of study and have a lot of scope in future. According to the FICCI-EY 2019 report, Indian Media and Entertainment (M&E) sector grew 13.4% over 2017 and reached INR1.67 trillion (US$23.9 billion) in 2018. It is also expected to cross INR2.35 trillion (US$33.6 billion) by 2021. So, it is a field where a lot of opportunities will be created.

References

Mass Communication theory by Denis McQuail
http://www.ficci.in/ficci-in-news-page.asp?nid=16867
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_culture
https://www.communicationtheory.org/lasswells-model/