Social media and video games as the types of mass media in the modern society

 Author: Galkin Daniil

Digital and social media have become one of the most popular types of mass media in our time. It helps us to interact with people online, discover news and information in real-time, and have access to an almost endless amount of information in a blink of an eye. For businesses, social media have become an important tool of interacting and targeting their audience, building a culture and fanbase for their brand. 

Social media popularity can be explained as it practically covers all the needs of a modern human with an internet connection – it provides entertainment, information, education, and discussion. Also, it is a tool for government, businesses, and other institutions for propaganda and monitoring people’s interactions, albeit it is quite a controversial topic for the masses.

Of course, the adoption of the idea of social media started even before the Internet appeared on history’s scope, with a series of electronic dots and dashes tapped out by hand on a telegraph machine. However, with the internet growth, social media proved that services that give its audience a platform for social interaction are a must for modern times. For example, we can’t imagine modern social media without such sites as Reddit, Twitter, TikTok, or YouTube, and they now can define new genres of content.

In addition, video games have become the prevalent type of entertainment for both young and mature audiences – they have gone from being a derivative medium that took its cues from other media, such as books, films, and music, to be a form of media that other types derive new ideas from.

We can indeed argue if video games are a part of digital, broadcasting, or another type of media, but we can’t argue that video games are mass media. Primarily, the main role of video games as media is entertainment, but nowadays with different genres, they also serve as the means of education, communication (MMOs), and propaganda. Video games started as a project of inspiration from comic books, TV, music, and movies, but now they are the inspiration for giant franchises, such as Sonic the Hedgehog, Just Cause, and others.

Video games are a difficult topic in terms of social media, but there are endless resources that can be used to send a message directly to the player, from a simple image to a dialogue between two characters. Games evolved from being simple entertainment for kids to be one of the most influential multimedia in the whole world. For the events that shaped the industry we can, of course, talk about the release of video game consoles, games going mainstream and becoming a hobby for everyone, not just “geeks and children”, and also the rise of cellphones, smartphones, and iPhones.

Of course, social media, video games, and almost all of the digital media’s fate intertwine after the invention of PC, internet, and mobile phones and it shaped both of those types of media. Social media nowadays can’t exist without the Internet, as they became almost synonymous with each other, and video games are primarily distributed through Internet shops and platforms.

And with that said, we can conclude this topic. Those two types of mass media can't share the same public reception, but nevertheless are important in the Internet culture today. I think that in the future, they should become even more prevalent, as we can't know exactly what future holds for us now, can we?