Ideally, the result of mass media activity is broad awareness of the audience on the most diverse phenomena of life. Let us repeat that the information received from the mass media should “work” – to form public opinion and a picture of reality, to force them to act in accordance with the impulse contained in it. The media fought to bring to life the utopian ideals of supposedly close communism. In the present, the media do not have one directive line of functioning. Their activity is determined by the absence of a single all-pervading ideological principle and the political multi-party nature of society; market relations, i.e. competition between the main information channels and various media outlets of the same thematic focus; the globalization of information processes leading to the establishment of the principles of the Western information industry in the domestic market.
Now every media outlet has its own ideas about the proper result of the information policy being pursued. Therefore, journalistic goals can be different. Ultimately, they boil down to three main ones:
- ideological (educational), when the media act as an instrument of propaganda;
- informational, when the media declare their independence and emphasize objectivity;
- financial, when the media are viewed by their owner as a profitable business, with priority given to both one of the named goals and their comprehensive implementation. The effectiveness of the media is made up of efficiency and effectiveness.
In the theory of journalism, these seemingly synonymous words have different meanings. A journalistic text can be addressed to a mass audience and to a social institution. Effectiveness is understood as the impact on decision-making and action by various social institutions. The effectiveness of the media is talked about when it comes to influencing a mass audience. The effectiveness of the mass information process equally depends on the personality of the journalist-communicator, and his knowledge of “his” audience, and on the universal creative factors that should be taken into account when preparing a journalistic work.
