Page 132 - Myths for the Masses An Essay on Mass Communication

Mass Communication and the Meaning of Self in Society

shorter duration, and the complexity of social, economic, or politi-
cal issues is reduced spatially and temporally to information bites,
or visually to the imagery of disembodied faces.
The result is a short institutional attention span with a fading
historical consciousness and a characteristic lack of concentration
on issues or events beyond the realm of sensationalism. Such a vision
excludes the possibility of maintaining a democratic perspective of
inclusiveness and participation, particularly since the latter is based
on negotiation and collaboration regarding time and space for the
purposes of comprehending the issues of the day and scrutinizing
the environment.

VII

The legacy of mass communication as a trustworthy producer and
supplier of information, grounded in the history of the media and
reinforced by self-promotion, is founded, among others, on claims
of objectivity and neutrality that help drape journalism in a mantle
of scientific respectability. It may be a methodological issue that
insists on the passive or unbiased recording of objects or events, or
a reference to the technical neutrality of the media machine, but it
is also a larger cultural circumstance that encourages a belief in the
unbiased nature of journalism, ever since the decline of a party press
and the impact of commercial intent on the business of producing
and disseminating information. Some time ago, the goal of supply-
ing news and entertainment to the largest possible number of indi-
viduals encouraged American journalism, in particular, to develop a
professional commitment to a discursive practice that is dedicated
to objectivity and impartiality – at times redefined in terms of fair-
ness to meet criticism – in the interest of serving a general public.
The emergence of the image as an increasingly relevant and legiti-
mate element in the visual discourse has reinforced this commit-
ment – based on the myth of the photograph, for instance, as an
objective representation of reality – and strengthened the ideology
of journalism as a documentary practice with deep roots in a belief
in the availability of an impartial truth. After all, photographs are
“the pencil of nature,” as Fox Talbott assures us, and their uses in

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