Seven mass media

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The seven mass media, or often used as "seventh mass media channel", to draw attention to the latest, mobile phones as a mass media, are a new concept and taxonomy to distinguish the major mass media channels and highlight their relative merits and benefits. The seven mass media categorization has emerged soon after mobile phones were recognized as a new and unique mass media channel. The strongest proponents of the seven mass media taxonomy tend to be companies closely involved in mobile telephony.

The seven mass media in order of their introduction are:

1 - Print (books, pamphlets, newspapers, magazines, etc) from the late 1400s
2 - Recordings (records, tapes, cassettes, cartridges, CD's, DVD's) from the late 1800s
3 - Cinema from about 1900
4 - Radio from about 1910
5 - Television from about 1950
6 - Internet from about 1990
7 - Mobile phones from about 2000

Each mass media has its own content types, its own creative artists and technicians, and its own business model. The sixth and seventh media, internet and mobile, are often called collectively as digital media; and the fourth and fifth, radio and TV, as broadcast media.

Recently various companies entering the mobile media space have started to use the seven mass media categorization to describe differences and similarities that mobile as the newest mass medium has to the older media. The seven mass media concept is frequently referred to by senior management of major industry players that range from mobile telecoms handset maker Nokia and network equipment maker Alcatel-Lucentand mobile software maker Symbian; to telecoms operators from British Telecomto Sprint-Nextel; to media houses from IDGand Emapto National Public Radio USA; to advertising agencies like Ogilvy. Individual media experts have commented on the seven mass media taxonomy ranging from multiple bestselling authors such as Howard Rheingold (Smart Mobs) andAjit Jaokar (Mobile Web 2.0) to photographers Sion Touhig in the UK and Jon Anderson in the USA.

The first university course to cover the Seven Mass Media was held at Oxford University in 2007.

The first books to discuss the Seven Mass Media are

Digital Korea by Ahonen & O'Reilly, 284 pp hardcover, futuretext, 2007

Mobile Advertising by Sharma, Herzog & Melfi, 404 pp hardcover, John Wiley, 2008

Tanla Mobile Marketing Guide 2008 edited by Helen Keegan, 128 pp softcover, Tanla, 2008

UK based media consultancy SMLXL released a White Paper entitled " 7th Mass Media" in 2007

Hong Kong based technology consultancy TomiAhonen Consulting has released two short white papers on the topic in 2007[1] and 2008[2].

The mobile telecoms related industries are embracing the seven mass media concept, and it is used for example by Dot Mobi in their trainings and seminars to educate on the unique benefits of mobile as a media channel.

The topic of the seven mass media has been discussed in numerous press articles and dozens of conference presentations on six continents, and the first dedicated conference on the topic of seventh mass media is scheduled for Copenhagen Denmark for June 2008 [3].

A university study on the seventh mass media channel is being conducted at the University of Canada at Waterloo [4].

Globally the topic has found strong international appeal with media and technology experts and companies discussing the media and often specifically mobile in the context of the seven mass media. These include Integral Visioning (Belgium)[5], Futurize Korea (South Korea)[6], E-Limbo (Spain)[7], Ilva PR (Latvia)[8], Hugo E Martin (Germany)[9], Emerce (Netherlands)[10], Telecom Pakistan[11], Between the Lines (Indonesia)[12], Blog Mobile Marketing (France)[13], Sandra In Learning (China)[14], Psilock (Dubai)[15], Experientia (Italy)[16] and The Virtual Works (South Africa)[17].