Page 109 - Myths for the Masses An Essay on Mass Communication

Mass Communication and the Meaning of Self in Society

vided additional insights into the workings of mass communication
on an individual’s ideas or behavior.The findings from experimen-
tal work – while offering increasingly complex answers to questions
about the potential of mass communication that seem to support a
powerful effects paradigm – are in conflict with surveys or panel
studies of audiences, which yield a far less powerful model of
mass communication. The individual emerges from those studies
equipped with agency and personal power. Quite predictably then,
the apparent discrepancies within mass communication research lead
to a selective use of empirical findings for political or commercial
purposes.
Considerations of mass communication effects on individuals
range from the “magic bullet theory” – consistent with sociologi-
cal and psychological theories of the time – which anticipates the
immediate, uniform, and direct effect of messages on every audi-
ence member, to a more sophisticated understanding of selective
influences based on the specifics of the personal and social attrib-
utes of individuals, including social differentiation and social rela-
tionships. Thus, the discovery of the effects of informed personal
relationships through the movement of information – from media
to informed individuals and to others with less direct media con-
tacts – revitalizes the notion of individual power, and the role of
opinion formers, through personal influence, which restores confi-
dence in the importance of face-to-face communication.
The pursuit of these ideas by mass communication research has
led to the realization that effects may not be immediate or direct,
but subtle, indirect, and with long-term consequences for culture
and society. Those consequences, whether real or anticipated, relate
to the role of mass communication in the process of socialization,
that is, in reinforcing continuity and predictability in the life of
society, and in equipping individuals to conform to the social order.
Communication is a crucial element in the socialization of the
individual, since it stimulates participation in the shared reality of
everyday life. Such a reality is created and disseminated through
the process of mass communication and with the help of media
organizations, and their efforts to describe the dominant norms,
roles, and practices and provide a language of expectations that
becomes a predictable text for individual (or social) action.

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