Difference between Journalism and Mass Communication

Journalism in a broad sense is all about news reporting whereas mass communication deals with different mediums of media to spread messages, information or entertain masses. Reporting in newspapers, magazines, T.V., radio or the digital mediums usually comes under journalism. And based on the different mediums, the field of journalism can be divided into three broad categories namely the print (i.e. the newspapers and magazines), electronic (i.e. T.V. and radio) and online journalism. So based on your interests you could even choose for a course specific to one of these mediums.

 As for mass communication, you could say that is an umbrella term for a wide variety of media fields such as that of theater, radio, T.V., film making, journalism, advertising, public relations and others. In short mass communication covers a broad area of media while journalism focuses only on news.

As the name itself suggests,  mass communication deals with a wider range of media to ‘communicate’ different stories, messages, facts or statistics to the public. Courses in advertising, film making, television, journalism, etc fall in this bracket.  Journalism on the other hand is specific to delivering news to public through mainly two platforms, i.e. print media or electronic media. Print media or print journalism largely covers newspapers and magazines while electronic journalism is the reporting of news through television and radio.

Of course with a vast array of opportunities and ideas coming up nowadays,  mass communication and journalism are further divided into a lot of different streams. So while choosing a course in these, keep your interests in mind and foray into this huge pool of opportunities.

Are you looking to make a career in the field of media, but with the plethora of courses available you are confused about which one to go for? Well, worry not for you are not the only student stuck in this dilemma. There are many aspiring media students who are unsure which field to go for. And most face this confusion between the two very popular courses namely the 'journalism' and 'mass communication.' Although both of them are quite interlinked media courses they lead to pretty different careers. And before you choose between one of them you need to understand which one of these is a better match to your career interests.

Happy Learning!

Anamika Gupta

Iaan