Page 120 - Myths for the Masses An Essay on Mass Communication

Mass Communication and the Meaning of Self in Society

body culturally visible and locates the personality in time and space.
After all, the ego is a mental projection of the body surface, accord-
ing to Sigmund Freud. It is a surface constituted by size, shape, and
dress, which is projected through mass communication into the
world with an aura of purity that flows from the practice of pack-
aging – and a preoccupation with hygiene – as manifestations of
social or cultural development. The packaging of the self is a
response to contemporary conditions, in which appearance signals
social standing, or lifestyle, efficiently and effectively for a fast-
moving society, while the ordinary remains unattractive and there-
fore marginalized. There is distraction, however, when capitalism
introduces the fleeting notion of glamour, which is based on the
discourse of fashion and on a collaboration with mass communica-
tion to reproduce the fanciful articulation of corporeality. Indeed,
glamour is a surface phenomenon of industrial societies; it belongs
to the marketing efforts of public relations or advertising, where it
is produced to undermine ordinary tastes and create desires for
transformation and change.
Mass communication enforces the conditions of subjectivity,
which are articulated by appearance and located in categorical
requirements for the body and in the specifics of clothing. Mass
communication also provides the clues for defining social status,
with references to the cost or value of objects or events whose
exclusivity marks the boundary between self and others. Hence,
appearance suggests power and ensures presence as a form of author-
ity; it is regulated by fashion, which, like mass communication, is
about imitation and demarcation, as Georg Simmel reminds us
regarding its social adaptation and its uses within specific social
classes. It is also a form of social control, which releases the indi-
vidual from personal responsibility.
The cultural visibility of the body is greatly improved by the
use of visual media. Looking through the eye of the camera is a
dominant way of perceiving reality, and the art of photography,
specifically, has come to control the reality of the body. Film and
television enhance this visual technology of the gaze, not only
by adding movement to the visual narrative, but by perfecting
the visibility of the self by the self for purposes of recognition and
identification.

108