The Role Played by Media in Public Welfare

The Role Played by Media

in Public Welfare Communication

Introduction

Public welfare communication, in a broad sense, refers to non-profit communication activities supporting and promoting public service and actions, with the aim of pursing public benefit, such as public service advertising, public service website, public welfare project, public welfare donation, etc.

In recent years, media has become an important tool for raising public welfare awareness. As Mcluhan said, “medium is the extension of man”. [1] On account of its characteristics, media is capable of guiding the society in a more powerful way. Hence, in the course of public welfare communication, media bears vital responsibility.

One nature of public welfare is to influence people’s mindset and then mobilize them to participate in the wave of changing the world. Only when the impact has been tremendous enough can the cause achieve the social objectives. Thus, doing public welfare is not allowed to make a cart behind a closed door. Those who work in the field have to communicate with the public in order to know the need of the public. Only through this, public welfare cause can surely accomplish its meaning. In this sense, the significance of public welfare communication should not be neglected. Being an impactful channel to talk to the public, what kind of role should media play? And facing the new media technology, what kind of alterations should media make to adjust the public welfare communication in new era?

Development of Public Welfare Communication

Public service advertising, acting as an important part of public welfare communication, first appeared around the 1940s. As some material indicates, the more developing countries they are, the more public service advertising there are. In these countries, such as US and Japan, media plays an essential role in public welfare communication. ABC from US and CANEL+ from France, for instance, made some effort on offering public...