Page 139 - Myths for the Masses An Essay on Mass Communication

Mass Communication and the Meaning of Self in Society

It is the process of the montage, however – a selection of repre-
sentations of objects or events, claimed from media presentations
and reorganized in a rapid succession of sequences – that reconsti-
tutes a single view of a vague reality, or a coherent and ideologi-
cally consistent statement about people or events. For André Bazin,
speaking about film, montage is essentially and by its nature opposed
to the expression of ambiguity. Thus, montage is the reflection of
an attitude of certainty that comes with the intent and purpose of
the producer. In the context of exploring the process of mass com-
munication in general, montage is an intervention, or a process of
editing the “flow” of mass communication, that exists as an indi-
vidual response to social or cultural demands for making sense of
the world. Perfected by images or words from across a variety of
media, the montage expresses a particular Weltanschauung of the
individual as monteur, whose needs for reinforcement or confirma-
tion are met by securing only what is relevant or important from
the “flow” of mass communication. The idea of montage, then,
suggests the employment of choice in a departure from a holistic
view of the process of mass communication, a devotion to parts or
sequences of the “flow” for a specific, ideologically predisposed
reading.
The effort of positioning the individual within the complex artic-
ulations of reality, however, is complicated by the degree of know-
ledge regarding the popular narratives of the cultural discourse. It is
also influenced by the increasingly close relationship between texts,
together with an increasing willingness to rely on self-referential
strategies within a specific medium, such as the novel, but also across
media, as for example between television drama and newspaper
reports. This intertextuality of the subject marks contemporary
popular culture production and suggests not only a wide and varied
cultural consumption, but cultural literacy sufficient for a sophisti-
cated reading of the respective texts.
Underlying these approaches to the process of mass communica-
tion is a respect for reality, its representation in media narratives,
and its reproduction by the individual for the purpose of under-
standing life. Although most closely related to the capabilities of
photography and film to freeze the moment and capture the natural
world, the revelation of reality is a concern throughout media

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