Mass Communication
Mass Communication
Mass Communication
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EARLY PERSPECTIVES
A belief in the powe r of tnass nrerlia wrrs initially based on observation of their great
reirch irnd apparenr impact, especialh' in relation to the new popular newspaper press.
According to DeFleur:rnd Ball-Rokeach (1989), newsprlper circulation in the USA
peaked in 1910, although it wzrs a good deal later in Europe and other parts of the
worlcl. The popular press was mainly iunded by commercial advertising, its content
lvas characterized by sensational nervs stories and its control often concentrated in the
hands of powerful press 'barons'. The First \(/<rrld War saw the mobilization of press
ancl filn'r in most of F.urope and the United States for the nationalist war aims of
contendtng states. The results seemed to leave iittle doubt of the potency of media
influence on the 'masses', when effectively managed and directed.
This impression was yet further reinforced by whar happened in the Soviet Union
and, later, in Nazi German1,, where the rnedia were pressed into the service of
propaganda on hehiilf of ruling party elites. The use of news and entertainment media
by the allies in the Second \7orld \far removed any doubts about their propagandist
valure. Before the centurv was half wav on its course, there was already a strongly held
and sourtdly based view that mass publicity was effective in shaping opinion and
inflLrencing behavior-rr. It couild also have effects on international relations and
:rlliances. N'lore recent events, including the ending of the Cold War and the handling
of the Clulf War and Kosovo Confiict have confirmed the media as an essential and
dvnamic componenl in trnv interna.tional power struggle, where public opinion is also
a fetctor. fhe conditions for effecrive media power have generally included a national
media inclustrv c:rpable of reachins most of the population, a degree of consensus in
the rnessager dissemiriated (whatever its origin) ancl some measure of credibility and
trusl on the part of audiences (also with r'arying foundations).
theories
in the socio
North
America.
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I
I
THE'MASS' CONCEPT
have been
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theories
iiillll::il::: }iH:
Box
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3.1
Large aggregate
Undifferentiated
Mainly negative image
Lacking order or organization
PROCESS
of
market and a use value for its receiver,
the media consumer. It is essentially
a commodity and differs in this respect from
the content of other types of human
communication relationship.
The reception of mass communication
is also distinctive. Audiences are generally
conceived of (by media themselves,
but also by popular prejudice) as rarge
aggregates
of dispersed and passive spectators' without
opporiunities to respond or to participate
tn a genuine way' Although conscious of
being part of a much larger set, the
media
spectator has little contact with or
know
interact directly with a srnall number.
T
constituted momentarily by the more
or
source and has no other existence
except in the book-keeping of the
media industries
(Ang, 1991).
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theories
and reception
O,
market relationship
content
THE
MASS AUDIENCE
Herbert Blumer (1939) was the first to define the mass formally
as a new rype of social
formation in modern society, by contrasting it with other
formations, especially the
group' crowd and public. In a small group, all its members
know each otheq are aware
of their common membership, share the same values, have a certain
structure of
relationships which is stable over time and interact
to achieve some purpose. The
crowd is larger but still restricted within observable boundaries
in a particular space . It
is, however, temporary and rarely re-forms with
the same composition. It may possess
a high degree of identity and share the same 'mood',
but there is usually no struqure
or order to its moral and social composition. It can act, but its
actions are often seen
to have an affective and emotional, often irrational, character.
The third collectivity named by Blumer, the public,
is likely to be relatively large,
widely dispersed and enduring. It tends to form around
an issue or cause in public life,
and its primary purpose is to advance an interest or
opinion and to achieve polirical
change' It is an essential element in democratic politics,
based on the ideal of rarional
discourse within an open political system and often
comprising the betrer-informed
section of the population. The rise of the public is
characteristic of modern liberal
democracies and related to the rise of th. ;bou.geois'
or party newspaper described
earlier.
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3.3
Larte nurnbers
Widely dispersed
Non-interactive and anonymous
Heterogeneous
Not organized or self-acting
The audience for mass media is not the only social formation
that can be
characterized in this wag since the word is sometimes
applied to consumers in the
expression 'mass market' or to large bodies of voters (the
'mass electorate,). It is
MASS CULTURE
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it is created
Box
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3.4
Mass culture
Non-raditional
Non-elite
Mass produced
Popular
Commercial
Homogenized
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it
rediscovery (by the middle classes) was taking place at the very time that it was rapidly
disappearing amongst worker and peasant classes because of social change. Folk cul-
ture was originally made unselfconsciously, using traditional forms, themes, materials
and means of expression and had usually been incorporated into everyday life. Critics
of mass culture often regretted the loss of the integrity and simplicity of folk art, and
the issue is still alive in parts of the world where mass-produced culture has not
completely triumphed. The new urban industrial working class of 'Western Europe and
North America were the first consumers of the new mass culture after being cut off
from the roots of folk culture. No doubt the mass media drew on some popuiar
cultural streams and adapted others to the conditions of urban life to fill the cultural
void created by industrialization, but intellectual critics could usually see only a
cultural loss.
The rise of mass culture was open to more than one interpretation. Bauman (1972),
for instance, took issue with the idea that mass communication media caused mass
culture, arguing that they were more a tool to shape something that was happening in
any case as a result of the increasing cultural homogeneity of national societies. In his
vieq what is often referred to as mass culture is more properly just a more universal or
standardized culture. Several features of.mass communication have contributed to the
process of standardization, especially dependence on the market, the supremacy of
large-scale organization and the application of new technology to cultural production.
This more obiective approach helps to defuse some of the conflict that has characterized the debate about mass culture. In some measure, the 'problem of mass culture'
reflected the need to come to terms with new technological possibilities for symbolic
reproduction (Benjamin,1977) which challenged established notions of art. The issue
of mass culture was fought out in social and political terms, without being resolved in
aesthetic terms.
Possession of
economic capital has usually gone hand in hand with possession of 'cultural capital',
which in class societies can also be 'encashed' for material advantages. Class-based
value systems once strongly maintained the superiority of 'high' and traditional culture
against much of the typical popular culture of the mass media. The support for such
value systems (though maybe not for the class system) has weakened, although the
issue
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THE
RISE OF
A DOMINANT PARADIGM
FOR THEORY
AND
RESEARCH
practices of the
emerging social sciences, especially social surveys, social-psychological
experiments
and statistical analysis. The paradigm is both an outcome
of and-a guide to com_
munication research. The underlying, though rarely explicated,
ui.* of.-rociety in the
It presumes a certain kind of normally
emocratic (elections, universal suffrage,
conditions, individualistic, freedom of
etition between parties and interests) and
legitimate).
The potential or actual good or harm to be expected
from mass media has largely
been judged according to this model, which h"pp.n,
to coincide with one version of
Western society. The contradictions within this view
of society and its distance from
social reality were largely ignored. It is by reference
to this model that research has
been undertaken into the socializing, informing, mobilizing
and opinion-shaping
activities of the media. The same is true in relation to
crime, ethnic conflict and other
problematic features of mass media content and effects.
Most early research oriented
to the media in developing or Third world counrries was guided
by the assumption
that these societies would gradually converge on the same (more
advanced and
progressive)'Western model.
Early international communication research l,ras also
influenced by the notion that
the model of a liberal, pluralist and jList society was threatened
by an alernarive,
totalitarian form (communisnr), where the mass media were
distorted inro tools for
suppressing democracy. The awareness of this alternative
helped to identify and even
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reinforce the norm described. This point of view could be largely
shared between the
media and theorists/researchers. The media often saw
themselves as playing a key role
in supporting and expressing the values of the ,'western way
of life,.
society.
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theories
Bias of
is not
difficult to describe and underst"nd. Research has
mostly been concerned with rhe
measurement of the effects of mass media,
whether intended (as with political and
public information campaigns) or unintended (as
with crime anci violence). Alternatively, it has been concerned with studying
aspecrs of the process that could aid in
the interpretation of effects - for instance, the
content of media messages, or the
stics of the audience. Even the srudy of
ght it sheds on what messages are likely
tional thinking and of rhe linear causal
al preferences of most communication
also been for precise measurement and
quantification, usually based on observations
of individual behaviour.
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Mainstream research has built around this basic approach several extra
elements
that have helped to shore up its credibility and to resolve conflicts with the
ideal model
of liberal-pluralist society described above. on the face of it, the one-way model
of
effect appears mechanistic and deterministic, in line with the conception
of mass
society in which a small elite with power and money could use the
powerful
instruments of media channels to achieve persuasive and informational
ends. The
images of a hypodermic syringe or 'magic bullet' have been
used to capture part of this
idea (DeFleur and Ball-Rokeach, 1989). In fact, the rejection
by r.se"r.h.r, of this
notion of powerful direct effect is almost as old as rhe idea itself (Chaffee
and
Hochheimer, 1982)' It has been clear for fifty years rhar mass media
simply do not
have the direct effects suggested. It has always been rather difficult
to prove any effects
(cf. Klapper, 1960).
The simple transmission model does not work for a number of reasons
which
empirical research has made clear. The main reasons are as follows:
signals do not
reach receivers' or not the ones intended; messages are not understood
as they are sent;
there is much more 'noise' in the channels than can be overcome.
Moreover, little
communication is actually unmediated, but is rypically filtered through
orher channels
or open to checking with personal contacts. All this undermines the
notion of powerful
media and casts doubt on the transmission model. Despite this, the
model stilihelps in
posing and testing (null) hyporheses, and the fin.lings that have
accumulated around
its 'failure' have been paradoxically :upporrive. By underlining the mediated
and
interactive nature of public communication, they have helped to
sustain the positive
image of the liberal-pluralist society as still in good shape and
not subject to
subversion by a few porverful or wealthy manipulators (Gitlin,'1,978).
Out of ,failed,
(: no measured effect) research comes a posirive message of health for the status quo
and also a vindication of the empirical research tradition.
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relations
researrch
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AN ALTERNATIVE PARADIGM
theories
degrees
disparate but interrelated ideas and praitices. The unacknowledged liberal pluralist
ideology of society has been exposed (for example, Hall, 1989). The linearity of the
model of effect and its generally mechanistic character has found numerous critics.
So has the influence of 'market and military demands on research and the media
(Mills, 7956). Gitlin (I978) exposed the too rosy interpretations of research findings about media effects and audience motivations. The potentially dehumanizing
effects of technology (for example, Carey, 1988) and the excessively quantitative and
individual-behaviourist methodologies have been singled out (for example, Smythe,
1972; Real, 1989; Jensen and Jankowski, 1,991,). Finally the model has been blamed
for neglect by communication research of vast areas of culture and human experience
(Carey, 1988).
Most broadly, the 'alternative paradigm' rests on a different view of society, one which
does not accept the prevailing liberal-capitalist order as just or inevitable or the best
one can hope for in the fallen state of humankind. Nor does it accept the rationalcalculative, utilitarian model of social life as at all adequate or desirable. There is an
alternative, idealist and sometirnes Utopian ideology, but nowhere a worked-out
model of an ideal social system. Nevertheless, there is a sufficient common basis for
rejecting the hidden ideology of pluralism and of conservative functionalism.
There has been no shortage of vocal critics of the media themselves, from the early
years of the century, especially in relation to their commercialism, low standards of
truth and decency, control by unscrupulous monopolists and much mote. More
relevant here are the theoretical grounds for approaching the mass media in a way
different from that proposed in the dominant paradigm. The original ideological
inspiration for a well-grounded alternative has been socialism or Marxism in one
variant or another. The first significant impulse was given by the emigris from the
Frankfurt School who went to the USA in the 1930s and helped to promote an
alternative view of the dominant commercial mass culture (Jay, 7973; Hardt, 1991).
Their contribution was to provide a strong intellectual base for seeing the process of
mass communication as manipulative and ultimately oppressive (see Chapter 5).
C. Wright Mills followed them (in the 1950s) by articulating a clear alternative view
of the media, drawing on a native North American radical tradition, eloquently
exposing the liberal fallacy of pluralist control. He described the media as organized in
the post-war USA (now often portrayed as a golden age ) as a powerful instrument of
control on behalf of an interlocked 'power elite' (Mills, 1956) and as a means of
inducing total conformity to the state and the economic order. He had himself worked
on the research (Katz and Lazarsfeld, 1955) which purported to establish the
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Despite the influence of the social-critical perspective of Mills, and later, of Marcuse
(7964), a second wave of influence from Europe (where the dominant paradigm also
held sway untilwell into the 1960s) has perhaps done most to promote the alternative
paradigm internationally. This has occurred since the 1970s and has different driving
forces and objectives. The main components of, and supports for, an alternative
paradigm are as follows. First is a much more sophisticated notion of ideology in
media content which has allowed researchers to 'decode' the ideological messages of
mass-mediated entertainment and news (which tend towards legitimating established
power structures and defusing opposition).
Secondly, a related development has denied the notion of fixed meanings embedded
in media content and leading to predictable and measurable impact. Instead, we have
to view meaning as constructed and messages as decoded according to the social
situation and interests of those rn the receiving audience. In particular, it is argued that
the ideology of the 'power elite' disseminated by the media can be read in an
'oppositional' way and exposed for the propaganda which it is. This is an alternative
version of the 'active audience' discovered in the course of empirical media-effect
research.
The economic and political character of mass media organizations and structures
nationally and internationally has been re-examined. These institutions are no longer
taken at face value but can be assessed in terms of their operational strategies, which
are far from neutral or non-ideological. As the critical paradigm has developed, it has
moved from an exclusive concern with working-class subordination to a wider view of
other kinds of domination, especially in relation to youth, alternative subcultures,
gender and ethnicity. These changes have been matched by a turn to more 'qualitative'
research, whether into culture, discourse or the ethnography of mass media use. This
has provided alternative routes to knowledge and forged a link back to the neglected
pathways of sociological theory of symbolic interactionism and phenomenology (see
Jensen andJankowski, 1991). This is part of a more general development of cultural
studies, within which mass communication can be viewed in a new light. According to
Dahlgren (1995) the cultural studies tradition 'confronts the scientistic self-delusion'
of the dominant paradigm, but there is an inevitable tension belween textual and
socio-institutional analysis.
The communication relations berween the First World and the Third World,
especially in the light of changing technology, has encouraged new ways of thinkirig
about mass communication. For instance, the relationship is no longer seen as a matter
of the enlightened transfer of development and democracy to 'backward' lands. It is at
theories
::--
of
Box
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3.6
and messages
erspective
litical_econom ic theories
5t
A transmission model
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theories
rs
forms of mass
orizing about mass communication (see,
for
ar attempt to extend and to improve on
the most complete early version of a
model
efining features noted above and consistenr
even
A ritual or
expressive model
and
It
labelled
s4
theories
measured),
rilThile those
necessa
' -lT,Ttlgaining
il;;;;.'i,"ci,.
LL,
s,
u/
annfrtef
tL--^
:^
.'e 1 t
contrast'
there is
no quantifiable
limit to the amount of ,meaning, that can
be
r" the satisfactions that can be gained from participating
in ritual
communication processes.
communication in the display-attention mode
exists only in the present. There is
no past that matters, and the future matters
only as a continuation or amplification
of the present' Questions of cause and effect
relating to rhe receiver do not arise.
::Ti:::1:l
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Attention-gaining is an end rn
itself and in the short rcrm
ualue neutral and
essenrially empty of meaning.
Form and technique take precedence
over message
conlent.
itrao)
empha_
*|
;:f ;:'"'"ffi'il:,:'::t"::1"',i'o,g;;; -.0,, messase passes on the
a,
d,,r,.
::
"tll ; i';,.:':?1T; yli,, iff Til'::lll;"ll fm**[ il*
any meaningful 'message'is
constructecl from,ign, *ti.h
can
which
ch
n ge
theories
r-
the
auolence.
Comparisons
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,il
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,
Orientation of
Sender
Receiver
Transmission
model
Transfer of
meaning
Cognitive
processtng
Expression or
ritual model
Pedormance
Consummation/
shared experience
Publicity
model
Competitive
display
Attention-giving
spectatorship
Reception
model
Preferential
encoding
Differential
decoding/
construction of
meaning
FIGURE
3'l
The basic concepts and models for the study of mass communication
were developed
on the basis of the special features indicated (scale, simultaneit5 one-directionalitg
etc') and under conditions of transition to the highly organized and centralized
industrial society of the 2Oth century. Not everything has changed,
since such societies
are still the norm, despite trends towards internationalization and
more flexible social
organization' not to mention the much vaunted postmodernism of the
times. However,
we are now faced with new technological possibilities for communication
that are not
massive or one-directional and there is some shift away from
the earlier massification
and centralization of society. The potential of transition to an 'information
society, is
real enough (see Chapter 6). \7e need also take account of a decline
in force of the
social critical paradigm as outlined above.
These changes are already recognized in mass communication
theory, although the
shift is still cautious and much of the conceptual framework erected for mass
communication is still relevant. 'We still have mass politics, mass markets
and mass
consumption. The media have extended their scale on a global dimension.
The beliefs
vested in the power of publicity, public relations and propaganda
by other names are
still widely held by those with economic and political power.
The 'dominant paradigm' from earlier days of mass communication
is not so
difficult to apply in new conditions, with a similar confidence in the
manipulative
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theories
capacity of the media and the malleability of the 'masses'. The key norion
of information transportation is still very much with us in the management of diverse
sysrems.
Some elements of the alternative paradigm (especially the methodological
principles)
are in accord with the changed social circumsrances and with a por,*od.,
n Zeitgeist,
since they are sensitive to context and to diversiry of use, response
and interaction.
As to the critical purpose, it is possible that the seeming currenr condition of
'normlessness' and loss of faith is temporary and superficial. the
old problems ro
which critical theory was addressed have not been solved, and there ,r. pi.nry
of new
causes to fill the gap left (temporarily) by the decline of the class
strugil.. Th. -"r,
media themselves are otganrzed in no prstmodern spirit, wharever
-"y L. said of their
content' Issues of gender defirition, cultural identity, inequality, racism, environmenral
damage, world hunger and social chaos are examples of problems of rising
salience
and concern in which the media are deeply implicated, just because of their
enhanced
role in the organization of narional and global society.
FURTHER READING
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