Page 108 - Myths for the Masses An Essay on Mass Communication

Mass Communication and the Meaning of Self in Society

into the workings of mass communication. It has also mostly suc-
ceeded in the form of what Paul Lazarsfeld once called administra-
tive research – or what mass communication does – rather than
critical research, which questions the role of mass communication
in society. The former benefits commercial (or political) organiza-
tions in their quest to gain public approval, or to reinforce positive
dispositions towards products or services. Indeed, the consumer con-
stitutes the major target of administrative mass communication
research. Its (marketable) product is the description of the “effect,”
on audience behaviors or attitudes towards goods or services.
The preoccupation with the impact of mass communication
derives from an everyday presence of media saturated with social
values – which are ideologically determined by such terms as pro-
paganda, public opinion, or mass media, for that matter, as well as,
in general, by the process of labeling. Mass communication research
also recognizes the potential of change – from the behaviors,
attitudes, and opinions of individuals to the ideological positions of
social formations – associated with media practices in society.
Although effects may have been greatly exaggerated in the past –
by those involved in research or in political or social struggles –
it remains likely that mass communication, as the only means of
identifying and assessing the significance of daily events, is an
increasingly potent means of bringing about modification or
change; for that reason alone, mass communication is the preferred
territory of effects research.
In this endeavor, the individual as a representative of the con-
suming masses becomes an important object of study at a time when
the circulation of commercial or ideological messages sustains the
media, beginning with newspaper coverage and continuing through
subsequent developments to the pivotal role of television.The image
of the isolated individual, which emerges from earlier sociological
considerations of modern society as an impersonal and alienating
environment in which mass persuasion is an accomplished media
practice, begins to change, however, with the rediscovery of the
primary group and the impact of interpersonal communication on
the structured nature of an audience.
In addition, experimental work – prominent since the World War
II and the controlled studies of Carl Hovland and others – has pro-

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