Page 22 - Myths for the Masses An Essay on Mass Communication

Mass Communication and the Promise of Democracy

At the same time, still and moving images began to encroach on
earlier meanings of mass communication, to move social commu-
nication more consciously beyond pure language to imagery, while
the rise of broadcasting implied a return to the spoken word and
introduced sound as an environment for information and enter-
tainment. The aural experience defined the uses of radio within
private or public spaces, and its later portability produced a move-
able technology that liberated the listener from the confinement of
place and time.The result was not only the availability of new and
different media – beyond painting and printmaking – with their
commercial potential (from photography, film, and television to
radio), but a heightened sense of mediation, or of recording and
transmitting information linked to the production of aural and visual
realities.
Also, the possibility of reproducing the world “as it is” with the
aid of photography – and later film – for instance, created a rivalry
with the word that has lasted until now, although the initial fear
that the word would be replaced by the image did not materialize
in the twentieth century. Photographs introduced a new language
of mass communication which transcended the written or spoken
word; they offered illustration and explanation of nature and
humanity. Photographic images dwell on the fact and promote a
positivistic view of the world that appeals to readers, who value the
immediacy of the object and cherish the reality of the image. The
picture advanced as a means of social and scientific identification,
or proof, and became a reliable language of mass communication,
embedded in the context of words, and read with confidence by
those looking for empirical truths. Indeed, pictures confirmed a
believe in the objectivity of mass communication (journalism) and
contributed to its credibility. Later on, television would build its rep-
utation on the strength of the image in the discourse of society.
Today images determine this discourse of society with their pres-
ence (or availability) across a range of media. They help construct
reality and impose views or perspectives that conform to ideologic-
ally determined expectations. Baudrillard argues that they bear no
relation to any reality and are their own “pure simulacrum.” In this
case, images are the new vocabulary of a postmodern capitalist
society, in which the individual is dazzled by the spectacle – and

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