Jan Slater is the Head of Advertising at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Prior to her appointment at Illinois, Slater was an associate professor and the associate director of the E. W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University for nine years. Slater joined the academy following a long career as an advertising practitioner, working in private industry, as well as advertising agencies in Omaha, Nebraska. When she left the business, she was running a successful advertising agency, J. Slater & Associates. Slater has been an active member of the Association for Educators in Journalism and Mass Communication since 1995.

How do you define mass communication?

Mass Comm has traditionally referenced a means to conveying information to a population. I think many, in general, apply the mass media to the term. In the past — that has meant newspapers, magazines, and broadcast channels. My personal take on this is that communication has never been mass in its message — in that all messages have been tailored to a specific audience – and while we may have used mass media channels to deliver this – our message has been carefully crafted and targeted to a specific group.

Today, of course – mass media is shrinking in size and strength and consumption. That doesn’t change the context of our message – it simply changes the delivery. [Read more...]