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This article explores the relations between society and mass media. Canadian critical thinker Marshall McLuhan changed the way society views the media by making the people understand its ultimate power. But individuals trying to communicate messages must have some way to measure whether those messages are being received and understood as they intended. There are different types of analysis: Two of the best known are media clipping tabulation and advertising value equivalents. But neither of these provides any indication of how deeply the media massage takes hold and works over the reader. This is the kind of information organizations need in order to track and perhaps alter their messaging, as welt as to execute their entire communication program. Media content analysis is taking an increasingly prominent place in many PR programs because it offers in-depth data that speaks to McLuhan's notion of understanding the media massage. There are a growing number of research companies that offer sophisticated statistical data that evaluate whether media coverage reaches target audiences, focuses on key issues and contains company messages. INSETS: For Bonita Bay, the results are proof positive;Considering media analysis for your company?.

Presents letters to the editor about communication, published in the journal "Communication World." Praise of Karen Vahouny's article on the merits of linking investor relations with corporate communication, previously published in the journal, for bringing a lot of good advice on integrating business communication; Praise of the interview on author Salman Rushdie, published in the May-June 2004 issue of the journal.