Introduction:
Mass media are the means of communication. They bring us news and provide education and entertainment. The most favorite are printed media (such as books, daily press, magazines), broadcast media (such as radio, television) and digital media internet and mobile phones.
Daily press
Even in the age of television and Internet, the daily press has an important role to play, informing its readers about the latest news in political, cultural and economic life. There are interviews with famous personalities. The papers give us the most important sports results. One of the section is on advertisements. The front page contains the hottest political issues from both inside and outside the country, sometimes with documentary photos.
Types of daily press: Broadsheets or quality press, are larger in size, with few black and white pictures. The text is serious, reliable and unemotional.
Tabloids are smaller in size, they have shorter texts with many coloured pictures and they are large headlines that tell the whole story. They are not very serious, they are just gossips and sensational news. The most frequent quality papers in Britain are: The Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian and The Independent. The tabloids with the biggest circulation are The Daily Mirror, The Sun or The People.
Magazines
Magazines provide entertainment or information. Some bring us offers of various goods. Women prefer clothes whereas men are interested in technical devices. Magazines are published not daily but on a weekly, fortnightly, monthly or quarterly basis. This is the main reason why they cannot supply fresh daily news. Journals deal with specialized issues of one particular field in which only limited number of readers are interested. Experts such as doctors, engineers, economists are given information on the latest trends and events in their professions. Hobby magazines are of various types as people have various hobbies. Therefore, there are magazines not only for motorists, nature lovers, fishermen or sportsmen, but also for those keen on housing, gardening, fashions, crossword puzzles or animals.
Radio and television broadcasting
Radio is powerful thing and although it has no screen like television does, it may broadcast 24 hours a day. Most people are too busy to watch TV during the day, but they can turn on their radios when working, cooking, even in the night.
Nowadays, television has a very important place in our lives. It brings us peace, entertainment, education. The Czech Republic has public service station – Czech television (ČT1, ČT2, ČT 24…) and two commercial stations – Nova and Prima. In Britain there are five channels: BBC1 (The British Broadcasting Corporation) which shows programme of general interest. BBC2 (documentaries, traveling). There are three commercial stations: ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5.
Internet
The Internet is about to become medium number one. You can join discussions, or just browse the web, send and receive e-mail, read newspapers, do your shopping, chat, download music and other things. Website is a place on the Internet containing pages with different information. The letters www stand for World Wide Web.