Approaches in the Study of Mass-Media Functions

Abstract

Nobody can deny the fact that media answers to certain needs or endeavors belonging both to
individuals and to society. Even if these needs are certain or diffuse, they have the power of shaping the
discourse of the press; in the same time, media creates conditions in order to influence social life, though
modifying the actions of individuals. Starting from this point, journalists, politicians, philosophers,
psychologists and sociologists have tried to find out the place that media takes into social existence, the bond
that appears between press and other groups or institutions, the power of these interactions and the
importance of media through the processes of economical, social, political or cultural change.