Page 126 - Myths for the Masses An Essay on Mass Communication

Mass Communication and the Meaning of Self in Society

Instead, mass communication more typically – and in its tradi-
tional manifestations in newspapers, radio, or television – accom-
modates the processing of information that is predetermined by
commercially or politically significant clients, predefined by public
relations efforts, and preselected for specific uses in propaganda cam-
paigns that range from advertising products to selling political ideas
– such as war. It is a context of predictable ideological positioning
of perspectives or arguments that makes for a one-dimensional view
of the world, in which the prevailing idea is the dominant idea.
Since television remains the most popular source of identification
of people and events, and because it is also the most affordable –
and therefore by necessity the most desirable – medium, its impact
on public knowledge is significant and its consequences are prob-
lematic. The initial “marketplace of ideas” notion of the media –
which made mass communication philosophically an attractive,
democratic option, because it could offer ideological alternatives and
create alternative methods for scrutinizing information – has all but
disappeared for a majority of the public, suggesting a realignment
of the notion of audience in response to a decline in its involve-
ment in making choices.
The reasons are twofold, with a focus on communicative and eco-
nomic competencies. More specifically, the variety of ideas, world
views, and opinions in the stream of mass communication – which
is substantial and meaningful enough – remains inaccessible for
larger segments of contemporary society, because they have neither
the intellectual skills nor the economic means to take advantage of
multiple resources. Consequently, definitions of the other, or recon-
structions of the world, which could make a difference in the
public’s understanding of people or events, remain hidden, with the
consequent failure to address the idea of participation as a public
policy of educational and economic assistance for the disadvantaged
– and therefore disenfranchised – members of society.
Moreover, such a failure undermines and destroys Habermas’s idea
of a “deliberative democracy,” which embraces the ability to partic-
ipate, equality of opportunity, and the autonomous formation of
opinion in an ideal mass-communication environment, whose acces-
sibility becomes a matter of political priorities.As a process of public
meaning-making, mass communication contains the potential for

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