See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/268416960

JOURNALISM AND MASS COMMUNICATION: THE MAKING OF MEANING

Article

CITATIONS READS

0 1,558

1 author:

Rashmi Luthra
University of Michigan-Dearborn
11 PUBLICATIONS   58 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE

All content following this page was uploaded by Rashmi Luthra on 11 December 2016.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

JOURNALISM AND MASS COMMUNICATION – Vol. I - Journalism and Mass Communication: The Making of Meaning -
Rashmi Luthra

JOURNALISM AND MASS COMMUNICATION: THE MAKING

OF MEANING

Rashmi Luthra
University of Michigan-Dearborn, Dearborn, Michigan, USA

Keywords: mass communication, globalization, public sphere, popular culture, internet,

journalism, censorship, television, radio, cinema, oral tradition, electronic media, news,
advertising, consumption, culture, identity

Contents

1. Introduction

TE SS
2. The Evolution of Journalism and Mass Communication

S
2.1. The Precursors of Modern Mass Communication
2.2. The Manuscript and Print Eras

R
AP L
2.3. The Electronic Era
2.4. The Digital Era
H O
3. Mass Media and Society
3.1. The Culture of Consumption and the Commodification of Media and Popular
C E
Culture
3.2. Mass Media, Popular Culture, and the Construction of Identities
E O–

3.3. The Global and the Local

4. Communication and Sustainable Development: Looking to the Future
4.1. Government and Corporate Control of Media as an Obstacle to Sustainable
Development
PL C

4.2. The Structure and Content of News as Obstacles to Sustainable Development

5. Conclusions
M ES

Acknowledgments
Glossary
Bibliography
SA N

Biographical Sketch
U

Summary

We are seeing emergent forms of communication at the beginning of the twenty-first

century whose implications are not yet clear. We have inklings of the wider
transformations of which the new communication forms are a part, and also the
transformations they will help to create. Some of the trends taking shape include the
convergence of old and new media, greater democratization of media and yet greater
control of media by large corporations, the fragmentation of media audiences, and a
greater presence of media and popular culture in the lives of more people throughout the
world than has ever been experienced before. The proliferation of means of
communication has been heralded for its potential in creating a “global village,” and
feared for its potential for deepening divisions and differences, and for fragmenting
people into isolated “islands.”

©Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS)

JOURNALISM AND MASS COMMUNICATION – Vol. I - Journalism and Mass Communication: The Making of Meaning -
Rashmi Luthra

This article charts a particular history of journalism and mass communication, taking
into account the various contributions of different cultures to this history, and also the
interrelations between old and new forms of communication. Some of the central trends
in communication and some of the larger cultural forces driving these trends are
examined, paying special attention to contradictions and competing tensions. Toward
the end of the article, the role that journalism and mass communication can play in
relation to sustainable development is considered, defining sustainable development
broadly and keeping the elimination of poverty, oppression, and inequalities at the
center of any long-term agenda for sustainable development.

1. Introduction

TE SS
The world has to be made to mean.

S
(Stuart Hall)

R
AP L
Journalism and mass communication are part and parcel of the human need and capacity
H O
to imbue the world with meaning. From ancient sculptures and frescoes in the caves of
Ajantha-Ellora to the use of complex drum rhythms in Africa and elsewhere, to
C E
spreading news by the electronic pulses conveying massive quantities of information
instantaneously throughout the world, we have examples of humans using symbols to
E O–

understand themselves, each other, and the larger world, and to communicate this
understanding. From the very beginnings of communication to the present day, the
making of meaning has been influenced by such factors as the technological means
available, and the cultural, political, and economic environment within which the
PL C

process occurs. These factors, and the resultant forms and uses of communication, have
created great potential for bringing peoples of the world together, but they have also
M ES

served to divide them in many ways. Journalism and mass communication have been
agents of both war and peace, of upliftment and degradation, of understanding and
obfuscation. They have developed in such a way as to reproduce unequal relations of
SA N

power globally, nationally, and locally. And yet they continue to hold the promise to
challenge inequalities and serve democratization.
U

As the world changes physically, it is also changing economically, politically, and

culturally. An enduring question in the cultural area has been the possibility of viable
public spheres where people can come together to discuss the important issues of the
day, and together enunciate solutions to the urgent problems that are facing us.
Journalism and mass communication are central to the fostering or strengthening of
such potential public spheres or counterspheres. And yet the extent to which the media
can facilitate the creation of robust public spheres will depend crucially on the forces
playing upon them. Both government and corporate control of journalistic and
entertainment media shrink the possibilities in terms of the creation of autonomous
public spheres. Power imbalances both within and outside media create pressures that
lead to the continued amplification of certain voices, of the already wealthy and
powerful, and to the continued marginalization of other voices, of the already poor and
disadvantaged. On the other hand, the centralization and corporatization of media
continue to be challenged at all levels, very importantly by alternative media that keep

©Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS)

JOURNALISM AND MASS COMMUNICATION – Vol. I - Journalism and Mass Communication: The Making of Meaning -
Rashmi Luthra

alive marginal voices and worldviews. This article examines the tensions within which
journalism and communication are situated, and the contradictions that emerge as a
result.

2. The Evolution of Journalism and Mass Communication

Certain principles can be identified in tracing the evolution of journalism and mass
communication. One is that most technologies of communication developed as a result
of the ideas and knowledge contributed over a period of time by various people from
different cultures. Another is that the social context was very important in determining
when particular technologies developed, what form they took, and how they were used.
Part of this social context was the defense of territory and acquisition and maintenance
of empire. Although each new communication technology created new modalities, and

TE SS
new relationships to space and time, the new means of communication often
incorporated and absorbed earlier means as well. Moreover, any given society normally

S
evidenced the easy coexistence of older and newer means, unevenly spread within

R
societies to mirror already existing inequalities. These trends continue apace, with some

AP L
without access to a telephone and others connected to the World Wide Web, sometimes
H O
within a mile of each other. Each of these aspects will be taken up separately below.
C E
The evolution of mass communication has had some ironic results. The publishing
industry is highly concentrated in wealthy Western countries. Thus, the history of mass
E O–

communication has been written mainly by Western scholars who have privileged
Eurocentric and individualistic accounts. That is, these accounts give primacy to the
contributions of individual inventors from the Western world. Standard accounts have
also incorporated the paradigm of modernization, assuming that progress constitutes a
PL C

linear progression from the oral tradition to the manuscript era, to print, to electronic
transmission, and finally to the digital era. This progression is also seen as a logical
M ES

corollary, and an enabling component, of the economic, political, and social

advancement of all peoples, particularly those in the “Third World,” or the part of the
world that is considered backward in economic terms. This section takes an approach
SA N

that has developed more recently in an attempt to acknowledge the collective and
multicultural aspects of the history of communication. The section also interrogates the
U

modernization approach rather than incorporating its assumptions.

2.1. The Precursors of Modern Mass Communication

What have been roughly termed the “oral traditions,” existing from well before 4000
B.C., actually encompass a vast variety of complex systems of expression and
communication that have continuously adapted and changed over time, and that still
have enormous significance in large parts of the world. These systems include town
criers and bards, theater traditions as varied as the jatra and shadow puppetry from
South Asia, the Noh from Japan, and the Ta’ziyeh from Iran, and dances and musical
forms from every continent. These dynamic traditions have survived centuries of cross-
pollination and sometimes conquest. The bharat natyam and ramalila of India, as well
as its classical music forms, are cases in point. Many of these forms of communication
have religious roots, and this may help to explain their enduring significance. The
power of the oral tradition is so great that when it is incorporated into newer media of

©Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS)

JOURNALISM AND MASS COMMUNICATION – Vol. I - Journalism and Mass Communication: The Making of Meaning -
Rashmi Luthra

communication, the newer media are forced to attempt to recreate the original structure
of feeling in order to create mass appeal. When the epic Ramayana was televised in
India, for example, the producers geared the use of camera techniques, sound and
lighting to recreate the mental images and the feeling of devotion associated with the
epic that had long been experienced by the audience through ramalila (community
theater), kathas and akhanda paaths (communal readings of the Ramayana), and more
recently through poster art.

In the postmodern era, there has been a renewed interest in and recognition of the value
of oral traditions. Their potential to connect us with each other in community, to
reconnect us with nature, and to preserve crucial lessons and insights gained over
centuries is being recognized. For example the peoples in the fourth world, aboriginal
people such as the Samek in Norway and Sweden, are using theater to revive and

TE SS
express storytelling and singing traditions that were in danger of being lost altogether.
These traditions are now being creatively syncretized with Aristotelian dramaturgy to

S
express a unique sensibility, and sometimes to broach political issues such as the

R
environmental degradation of Samek lands. Other continuities with the oral tradition are

AP L
evident in the use of street theater by grass-roots movements in many countries. One
H O
such example is its use by women’s movements in India to raise consciousness about
issues such as female foeticide and dowry deaths.
C E
Within modern mass media, the persistence of the oral traditions is also apparent in
E O–

many ways. Inuits in Canada use community television, the Mapuches in Chile use
community radio, and African-American communities in the United States use gospel
radio as a way to retain expressive space, a space to elaborate alternative ideologies and
to speak a distinct language, both in actual and metaphorical terms. The wide popularity
PL C

of storytelling genres such as telenovelas and soap operas in the entertainment domain,
and talk shows in the informational domain, attest to the power of the spoken word. The
M ES

newer media continue to borrow from dynamic oral traditions in many ways.

2.2. The Manuscript and Print Eras

SA N

Several factors had to be present for the birth of journalism, as Kathleen Endres
U

delineates in her article “Evolution of journalism and mass communications” (see

EOLSS on-line, 2002). The same can be said for the start of the manuscript culture, and
later the use of printing to create books. Technological factors included the invention of
writing and the creation of papyrus, then parchment, and finally paper. Social factors
included the inculcation of literacy among the elite. A form of writing was developed in
Sumeria around 3000 B.C., and possibly in the Indus Valley around 4000 B.C.. The
Egyptians, Phoenicians, and Chinese also developed a written alphabet at about the
same time as the Sumerians. Papyrus was used as early as 2700 B.C. by the Egyptians,
and the Chinese began making book-like objects from strips of wood and bamboo
around 1000 B.C., later inventing paper in A.D. 105. The Chinese were also the ones to
invent block printing around A.D. 800, and the first movable type around A.D. 1000.

The necessary conditions for the birth of early journalism coalesced in Rome around 59
B.C., when the Acta Diurna began to be circulated to the elite in the empire, with each
issue being posted in public places. It lasted two centuries. Chinese ti-pao, or news

©Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS)

JOURNALISM AND MASS COMMUNICATION – Vol. I - Journalism and Mass Communication: The Making of Meaning -
Rashmi Luthra

sheets began to be circulated among government officials in the far reaches of the
Chinese empire in A.D. 618. These early forms of journalism were spawned in the most
technologically advanced cultures of that time in both the East and the West. Both
civilizations had a literate elite who had time to read and felt the need for information. It
would take a few more centuries for paper-making and movable type to develop in
Europe and for other conditions to exist for the establishment of journalism. (See also
“Newsletters, newspapers, and pamphlets,” EOLSS on-line, 2002.)

The use of writing in the manuscript era made possible a written record of history in a
more accessible and retrievable form than before, and by doing so changed the relations
between humans and time. Printing deepened this process, and changed the relationship
to space and time in a more fundamental way. It became possible to communicate a
particular message to large numbers of people separated by greater distances in a

TE SS
significantly shorter amount of time. Reproduction of printed material such as the
Diamond Sutra by Wang Shieh in China in A.D. 868 and Gutenberg’s Bible in

S
Germany in 1456 also made possible a shared experience for people who would earlier

R
have considered each other as complete strangers. In doing so, it expanded the sense of

AP L
community beyond the immediate, greatly enhancing the possibility of imagined
H O
communities beyond one’s kin, tribe, or immediate locality. Although the first Bible
was printed in Latin, in the early 1500s Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales became the first
C E
book to be printed in English. Books were only affordable by the elite, but gradually
less expensive paper and advancements in printing made it possible to produce cheaper
E O–

versions accessible to a larger population. Even with the beginnings of mass

communication, then, it is possible to see the tensions between democratization and
centralization, between the greater accessibility of previously elite works and the
deepening of class and other divisions. Although books were becoming more accessible,
PL C

clearly not everyone could own a printing press.

M ES

The printing press also introduced an important new dimension in communication with
its ability to reproduce large numbers of the original, a characteristic that electronic
media shares with print media. Walter Benjamin spoke of the ways in which mechanical
SA N

reproduction of art and photography changed the essential character of human sense
perception. His comments apply to print with equal force, as a very important case of
U

the introduction of reproducibility on a large scale. Benjamin wrote in 1970 that

technical reproduction “enables the original to meet the beholder halfway,” so that an
orchestra performance can be enjoyed in the living room. Benjamin felt that
reproducibility reduced the aura of the original. He also pointed out that mechanical
reproduction is more independent of the original than manual reproduction, so that an
airbrushed photograph has a reality independent of the person or scene it captures.
Digitalization has taken this process much further, with the idea of the original in the
end becoming irrelevant, as Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto points out.

Printed communication today includes a wide variety of media, including newspapers

and magazines of all stripes, newsletters, brochures, books, journals, maps, and
directories. The most widely circulated, such as magazines, books, and newspapers,
have seen a steady growth in corporate ownership, and increased concentration of
ownership in fewer hands over time. For example, in the United States, by the mid-
1990s chains controlled nearly 80 percent of all daily newspapers, and by 1999 the top

©Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS)

JOURNALISM AND MASS COMMUNICATION – Vol. I - Journalism and Mass Communication: The Making of Meaning -
Rashmi Luthra

seven chains circulated more than one-third of all daily papers in the country. Ten major
magazine chains own the magazines with the largest distribution worldwide. Seven of
these are based in the United States, one is based in Germany, one in Paris, and one in
London. Chain ownership is also on the increase in the book industry, although it
remains more open to entry and more diverse than the magazine and newspaper
industries. Magazines are the most sophisticated among print media in terms of catering
to narrow audience segments, and they are also among the most visually sophisticated
of the print media.

With the advent of printed media, the power of mass communication was unleashed.
Perhaps in recognition of this power, forms of censorship developed early on, and
remain a serious concern today. The struggle over freedom of expression has been most
evident in the context of the print media. In the twentieth century, journalists all over

TE SS
the world continued to risk their lives to impart information to reading publics. From
1995 through 1998, for example, 128 reporters were killed in various parts of the world,

S
and at least another 300 were imprisoned. Two prominent cases from recent history

R
illustrate the influence of political, religious, and economic forces in censorship. Salman

AP L
Rushdie’s novel Satanic Verses was banned and he was ordered to be killed by the
H O
Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran in 1989. In 1998, Harper Collins was directed by parent
company News Corp. to cancel publication of East and West by Chris Patten, former
C E
governor of Hong Kong. Chinese officials had expressed deep concern over the
criticism of the Chinese government contained in the book, and publishing the book
E O–

would have hurt News Corp.’s significant business interests in China.

The newspaper industry is undergoing a transition in some of the highly industrialized

countries. Circulations are declining as a result of competing media: at one time
PL C

television and now the Internet. For example, in the United States circulations have
been declining since the 1930s, and they have flattened out since the mid-1960s.
M ES

Although in the developing world, newspaper readerships are not declining, their reach
is limited to the literate population. This translates into uneven access, with adult
literacy rates in some countries being very low. Sierra Leone, for example, had an adult
SA N

literacy rate in 1990 of 38 percent, with the adult female literacy rate at 26 percent.
U

-
-
-

TO ACCESS ALL THE 31 PAGES OF THIS CHAPTER,

Visit: http://www.eolss.net/Eolss-sampleAllChapter.aspx

Bibliography

©Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS)

JOURNALISM AND MASS COMMUNICATION – Vol. I - Journalism and Mass Communication: The Making of Meaning -
Rashmi Luthra

Appadurai, A. 1996. Modernity at large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis, University

of Minnesota Press. 229 pp. [Appadurai offers a new framework for the cultural study of globalization in
this book.]
Barsamian, D. 1997. Vandana Shiva. The Progressive, No. 61, September, pp. 36–9. [This is an interview
with Vandana Shiva about her activism.]
Campbell, R. 2000. Media and Culture: An Introduction to Mass Communication. New York, Bedford/St.
Martin’s. 555 pp. [This textbook introduces a wide range of topics in communication and culture. It has
crucial information on the concentration of media ownership in various media industries that was used for
this chapter.]
Downing, J. (1996). Internationalizing Media Theory: Transition, Power, Culture. Thousand Oaks,
Calif., Sage. 269 pp. [Downing gives extensive examples from transitional periods in Eastern Europe and
Russia to show how communication theory can be regeared to take into account the experience of the
majority of countries rather than just the stable and highly industrialized democracies of the United States
and Europe.]

TE SS
Downing, J.; Mohammadi, A.; Sreberny-Mohammadi, A. 1995. Questioning the Media: A Critical

S
Introduction. Thousand Oaks, Calif., Sage. 511 pp. [This book introduces the basic concepts of critical

R
media studies, and elucidates the different approaches through application in particular contexts. The

AP L
articles by Edward Herman and Cedric Robinson referenced in this chapter are included here. An article
by Ali Mohammadi on the Iranian revolution, referenced in this chapter, is also included in the book.]
H O
Du Gay, P.; Hall, S.; Janes, L.; Mackay, H.; Negus, K. 1997. Doing Cultural Studies: The Story of the
C E
Sony Walkman. Thousand Oaks, Calif., Sage. 151 pp. [The authors provide a lucid explication of cultural
studies concepts through a cultural study of the Sony Walkman. Included in the selected readings at the
end of the book are the articles by Walter Benjamin and Rey Chow referenced in this chapter.]
E O–

Ewen, S.; Ewen, E. 1992. Channels of Desire: Mass Images and the Shaping of American Consciousness.
Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press. 247 pp. [The authors trace the history of consumption as a
way of life in the United States and its repurcussions on various facets of society and popular culture.]
Hamelink, C. 1997. International Communication: Global Market and Morality. In: A. Mohammadi,
PL C

International Communication and Globalization, pp. 92–118. Thousand Oaks, Calif., Sage. [This article
addresses the rights to information and culture as human rights. It looks at the confrontation of global
M ES

markets with the morality of human rights in the area of information culture.]
Herman, E.; Chomsky, N. 1988. Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. New
York, Pantheon. 412 pp. [The book lays out a propaganda model of the news and applies it to
SA N

performance of news organizations in the United States through extensive content analyses of foreign
news stories.]
U

Herman, E.; McChesney, R. W. 1997. The Global Media: The New Missionaries of Global Capitalism.
London and Washington, Cassell. 262 pp. [The book is an excellent resource on the increased
concentration of ownership of globalized media, and the implications of this trend.]
Joseph, A.; Sharma, K. (eds.) 1994. Whose News: The Media and Women’s Issues. New Delhi, Sage. 335
pp. [This covers the treatment of gender issues in the English language and Indian language press.]
Kolar-Panov, D. 1997. Video, War and the Diasporic Imagination. London and New York, Routledge.
270 pp. [This is an insightful case study of the use of video by the Croatian and Macedonian communities
in Perth, Australia to make sense of the war in Croatia and Bosnia, and the ensuing awakening of ethno-
national consciousness.]
Leonard, K. 1992. Making Ethnic Choices: California’s Punjabi Mexican Americans. Philadelphia,
Temple University Press. 333 pp. [An ethnography of Punjabi Mexican families in the Imperial Valley of
California, detailing process of bicultural adaptation.]
Mankekar, P. (1999). Screening Culture, Viewing Politics: An Ethnography of Television, Womanhood,
and Nation in Postcolonial India. Durham, N.C. and London, Duke University Press. 429 pp. [This
superb ethnography of television viewers in India looks at the ways in which gender, nation and class are
constructed through various genres on television such as entertainment serials and advertising.]

©Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS)

 JOURNALISM AND MASS COMMUNICATION – Vol. I - Journalism and Mass Communication: The Making of Meaning -
Rashmi Luthra

Marranca, B.; Dasgupta, G. (eds.) 1991. Interculturalism andPerformance. New York, PAJ. 335 pp. [The
book describes the process of cultural change, adaptation and resistance in the context of performative
forms of culture such as theater, music and ritual dance.]
Mitra, A. 1993. Television and Popular Culture in India: A Study of the Mahabharat. New Delhi, Sage.
196 pp. [This describes the televising of the Mahabharat in the broad context of cultural and media
institutional practices in India.]
Morley, D.; Robins, K. 1995. Spaces of Identity: Global Media, Electronic Landscapes and Cultural
Boundaries. London and New York, Routledge. 257 pp. [The authors look at the relations between
Europe and its most significant others—America, Islam, and the Orient—to elucidate the changing
character of identity formation in the postmodern age with globalized media. The reference to Martin-
Barbero in this chapter is taken from the Introduction to this book.]
Mowlana, H. 1996. Global Communication in Transition: the End of Diversity? Thousand Oaks, Calif.,
Sage. 233 pp. [Mowlana provides new concepts to explain the relationship between world
communication, culture and community, including the idea of communication as cultural ecology.]

TE SS
Rai, A. 1995. India On-line: Electronic Bulletin Boards and the Construction of a Diasporic Hindu
Identity. Public Culture, Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 31–58. [This is a case study of the alt.hindu on-line bulletin

S
board as a countersphere that contributes to the Hindu nationalist project.]

R
AP L
Rushdie, S. 1991. Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1981–1991. London, Penguin. [A
collection of essays on the culture of the times and on selected literary works. This includes an interview
H O
with Edward Said that I used for this chapter.]
Singhal, A.; Rogers, E. M. 1999. Entertainment-Education: A Communication Strategy for Social
C E
Change. New Jersey, Lawrence-Erlbaum. 265 pp. [The book describes the place of entertainment-
education in development, and includes several case studies from a number of countries.]
E O–

Tehranian, M. 1999. Global Communication and World Politics: Domination, Development and
Discourse. Boulder, Colo. and London, Lynne Rienner. 212 pp. [Tehranian discusses the innovations in
communication in the context of the dynamics of modernization. He addresses the pressing problems
created by corporate-based globalism and resurgent communalisms.]
PL C

Wilson, R.; Dissanayake, W. (eds.) 1996. Global/Local: Cultural Production and the Trans-national
Imaginary. Durham, N.C. and London, Duke University Press. 397 pp. [This book presents innovative
thinking on the relations between the local and the global in the cultural sphere. It includes articles that
M ES

advance theory as well as case studies. Articles by Rob Wilson and Wimal Dissanayake; Arif Dirlik;
Mike Featherstone; Ella Shohat and Robert Stam; and Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto, referenced in this chapter,
are included in this book.]
SA N

Biographical Sketch
U

Dr Rashmi Luthra is Associate Professor of Communication at the University of Michigan-Dearborn.

Her research interests include women’s movements and media, gender and international communication,
and media and diaspora. She has published in various journals including Gazette: International Journal of
Mass Communication Studies; Knowledge: Creation, Diffusion, Utilization; Feminist Issues; Women’s
Studies in Communication; and Journalism and Mass Communication Educator, and in various
anthologies including Making Waves: An Anthology of Writings by and about Asian American Women,
Feminism, Multiculturalism and the Media: Global Diversities, and Religion and Popular Culture:
Studies on the Interaction of Worldviews, and Women Faculty of Color in the White College Classroom.
She teaches courses in International Communication, Critical Media Studies, Communication Research
Methods, and Women’s Studies. She received her Ph.D. in Mass Communication from the University of
Wisconsin-Madison.

©Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS)

View publication stats