Page 31 - Myths for the Masses An Essay on Mass Communication

Mass Communication and the Promise of Democracy

ature. Implicit in the course of these events is the changing rela-
tionship between the production and circulation of social know-
ledge from hierarchical to democratic structures controlled, however,
by commercial interests.
Thus, the bourgeois control of mass communication, which his-
torically had rested on a privilege, needed defending against fading
aristocratic claims on power, on the one hand, and against a growing
rebellion from below, on the other, since literacy provides not only
access for the masses, but, equally important, access to the bour-
geoisie. Indeed, the democratic practice of sharing information in
the twentieth century retained some forms of a privileged, class-
related enterprise that took advantage of its access to the needs and
desires of people as subjects, who, in turn, adopted bourgeois behav-
ior and tastes in an effort to rise above their social standing. The
promise of a middle-class existence, involving the potential of liter-
acy and the propositions of mass communication, became the major
attraction of the American way of life.
With these developments also came significant attitude changes
towards the written word as a source of power, followed by a fun-
damental challenge to the cultural and political status quo. After all,
language as an external manifestation of thought acquired stability
with the new prospects of the text that began with the manuscript
age. Writing as a new technology – which remains a more revolu-
tionary invention than printing many centuries later – would
become invaluable for purposes of learning and the rise of litera-
ture. In fact, Mirabeau once noted that writing and money are the
two greatest inventions, since they produce the common languages
of intelligence and self-interest. Both inventions were soon to be
combined with the rapid commercialization of mass communica-
tion.Writing preserves not only the discourse of a culture, but gives
shape and substance to the physical and psychological manifestations
of contemporary life. It also reinforces the original bond between
language, myth, and religion and is a reminder of the mythical
power of the word as a primary force in society, not unlike the
power of money as a movable symbol of economic value. Money,
on the other hand, preserves power over the means of mass com-
munication and ensures control over the form and content of the
discourse. It is also a basic form of a commercial language, which

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