BBC concurs: Mobile is newest mass media

I was presenting at, and asked to act as replacement chairman as our advertised chair was ill, at the 3rd annual MENA Forum (Middle East and North Africa Mobile Strategies Forum) in Dubai. My presentation obviously included themes from our book and this blogsite, and I included the part about the mobile phone emerging now as the Seventh Mass Media.

If you want to read my discussion of the mobile phone as the 7th mass media it is at this posting here on this blogsite [Understanding the 6th and 7th Mass Media]

So immediately after my presentation, Simon Cottle of BBC World presented on the role of media in future mobile - and wouldn't you know it, Simon had almost the same concept and definitely the same principles. The BBC also sees the mobile phone as the latest mass media, younger than the internet, and put the previous mass media in the same order based on their introduction, starting with print from the 1400's. The only difference is, that the BBC didn't count cinema as one of the seven, so they ended up with only six mass media (TV being the fourth, internet being the fifth, and mobile being the sixth)

I could see from their thinking that it was invented independent of us, minor but clear distinctions. Simon and I spoke at length afterwards and we are obviously fully in agreement. It  really doesn't matter whether it is the "sixth" or "seventh" and whether cinema should be included as a mass media - the key is that mobile is a radical new mass media, as different from TV and the internet, as TV is from radio or the internet is from the printed newspaper. Good job BBC !! Helping us spread the word, this is a new mass media and it needs totally new knowhow.