Page 122 - Myths for the Masses An Essay on Mass Communication

Mass Communication and the Meaning of Self in Society

tic tendencies.The ability of photography to preserve the contours
of the face as a record of the past, for instance, not only relates to
the Western tradition of portraiture, but its almost instant popular-
ity – which is a reminder of the democratization of the visual image
– enables, if not encourages, frequent encounters with a reflection
of the self. Thus, aided by the availability of still or video cameras,
the pleasure of posing for the camera and the power of role-playing
in staged events may be of limited, familial importance until they
are explored by commercial interests in portrayals of an ordinary
life. The latter becomes exotic and offers entertainment that often
feeds on the flaws of the other and, therefore, avoids the banality of
the ordinary self.
Image consciousness becomes a new form of self-knowledge that
surrenders authenticity to celebrate the spectacle of the celebrity as
a source of insights into the personal. Indeed, mass communication
succeeds as a tool of separation, when images as commodities sepa-
rate the experience of privacy from their producers, who are isolated
from their own images in the process of mass communication.

V

Mass communication participates in the discovery of the social
world as a politically relevant source of information and a means of
constructing identities; it is a locus of a discourse which produces
the objects of public knowledge – as Foucault suggests. The con-
struction of meaning – or meaningful practice – is unthinkable
without the process of mass communication, which produces real-
ities that give meaning to subjects and practices.The importance, in
this case, is the realization that knowledge of the world derives from
the culturally specific discourse of mass communication at a con-
crete historical moment. From it flows power and the potential of
knowledge to become effective – or true – in its construction
of reality. Thus, mass communication becomes powerful in its dis-
cursive practices through which it influences the state of public
knowledge.
As the self traditionally develops in the company of the other and
in the context of face-to-face communication in a community

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