Page 14 - Myths for the Masses An Essay on Mass Communication

Mass Communication and the Promise of Democracy

all, Hannah Arendt reminds us that the word “social” originally
means an alliance of people for specific, political, purposes. Inte-
grating mass communication into democratic practice is a culturally
specific and intensely social project with political overtones.

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It is a commonplace that mass communication is currently in crisis,
since profits are down and public confidence in the media remains
low. It is less of a commonplace, however, to argue that this crisis
may have its roots in a failing dialectic between communication and
mass communication that distinguishes the public discourse of the
twentieth century and ultimately determines the quality of being in
the world. More precisely, the dualism of experience and learning
– the first product of understanding and the process of coming to
know, according to Immanuel Kant and John Dewey, respectively –
has been seriously challenged. While mass communication as a
determinant of social and political realities has multiplied experi-
ences of the world – or increased empirical knowledge – it has
failed to equip individuals with an intellectual disposition – or
rational knowledge – to competently approach the complexity of
the world with confidence.
The revolutionary shift from communication to mass communi-
cation – which had begun with the increasing mobility of the text
and the invention of the printing press – finally overturned a del-
icate balance between the authenticity of individual expression and
the inauthenticity of institutionally manufactured articulations of
reality in the twentieth century. Consequently, while mass commu-
nication as a media practice contains political and economic prior-
ities that redefine its traditional role in a democratic society, as an
idea it conceals a flawed conception of a democratic way of life
with an increasing isolation of the individual by private (economic)
media interests. As Max Horkheimer observed over 60 years ago,
the media profess to adhere to the values and freedom of the indi-
vidual, but they “fetter the individual” to prescribed thoughts,
attitudes, and buying habits instead. Indeed, the intellectual para-
dox, recognized early on by Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno,

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