This text comprehensively covers the importance, functions, and stages of development of media technologies and mass media in society. Media serves as a tool in the process of information exchange and communication, performing functions such as rapid transmission of information, systematization, maintaining social balance in society, and dissemination of cultural values. The text analyzes the historical development of media technologies through stages, from writing to print, electronic, and digital media. It also shows how primitive, traditional, industrial, and post-industrial stages of society affect the formation and role of media. The second part of the text describes in detail the criteria for classifying media (form of ownership, scope of distribution, style, periodicity, genre, and signal transmission method) and types of media such as print, electronic, and news agencies. This content is important for research in journalism and communication sciences, the formation of media policy, and the determination of the place of media in society.

media technologies, mass media (mass media), communication, media information, information exchange, print media, electronic media, digital media, social balance, cultural values, news agencies, types of society (primitive, traditional, industrial, post-industrial), classification criteria (ownership, scope of distribution, style, periodicity, genre).

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