Vertical and Horizontal Communication
Media encapsulates our lives thoroughly and provides us with information about the happenings in the world. With an everyday development and the rapid increase in the technology in the last decade of the 20th century, media is owned by not only public sector firms but also by private sector firms.
The traditional and old school method of communication generally follows Walter Lipmann’s theory of communication which says that the news which is being shown on the news channels is to be consumed by the viewer without asking anything in contrary. It is also known as the talk down approach. In this vertical communication method, the government controlled the media and became a propaganda machine to popularize the political party in the rule.
The Emergency in India during 1974, saw this on a large scale. The Indian government was under the leadership of the then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi and controlled each and everything which was telecasted on the TV or was printed in the newspapers.
On the other hand, the horizontal communication method breaks down into social media channels and it’s various inventive types of communication. Today, a smartphone provides every small thing at our fingertips. From reading a newspaper on our phones to book a cab, we can perform the smallest tasks without much hassle. Social media platforms such as Orkut, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat etc have engulfed the young generation and has given them the freedom to explore the boundary-less world through the internet. It gave them an opportunity to create their own personality on the internet by sharing their views and opinions. These social media platforms have also become a platform for sharing information about their whereabouts and what they are up to with the introduction of story updates on Instagram, Snapchat, and WhatsApp.
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