Page 150 - Myths for the Masses An Essay on Mass Communication

Mass Communication and the Meaning of Self in Society

excessive exposure to television, or a celebration of the phatic
image, as sources of distraction. The result is a cultural imbalance
that caters to commercial demands and social control rather than
to individual needs and private encounters with ideas. Gustave
Flaubert’s suggestion, read in order to live, seems quite appropriate
in the context of searching for a balance between the authenticity
of the self in communication (and in the process of learning) and
the collective dependence on mass communication (and the manner
of experience).
Thus, the notion of mass communication as a technologically
driven, partisan social agent is reinforced by its historical progres-
sion – from the rise of the printing press, which strengthened bour-
geois control, to the breakthrough of television, which confirmed
the power of corporate capitalism. Subsequently, mass communica-
tion has been further politicized by privileging the information
needs of a shrinking middle or upper class that relies on print media,
while others live with the inevitability of broadcast entertainment.
These differences have become more pronounced as time passes. In
fact, the aristocratic patronage system of the Middle Ages, which
supported creative and intellectual work that was accessible only to
bourgeois elites, has been successfully extended in modernity by
corporate sponsorship of narratives that shape the contemporary
reality of the masses.
In the meantime, mass communication creates an atmosphere of
enforced tolerance that contributes to the success of the political
system, the changing nature of democracy, and to the ways in which
individuals acquire their identities. For instance, between the lack of
campaign financing reforms – which must satisfy the wealthy classes
– and recent infringement of civil rights – which must please the
dominant bureaucratic class – the interests and rights of US citizens
have been marginalized with the aid of the popular media and tele-
vision journalism, in particular, which have recreated the individual
as subject.These media benefit financially from political advertising
and have long ignored, if not forgotten, the original calling of the
fourth estate as a watchdog for all of the people. Now more than
ever, the presence of an independent and critical press (or media
system in general) is crucial not only for the function of democ-
racy at a time of national and international crises, but also for the

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