Page 32 - Myths for the Masses An Essay on Mass Communication

Mass Communication and the Promise of Democracy

– according to Georg Simmel – expresses qualitative differences of
objects in terms of “how much?”
The idea of empowerment through words has always encouraged
scholarship in linguistics, from ancient Greece, when philosophical
thought passed from nature to language, to the nineteenth century,
when language with a particular reference to cultural history became
a reflection of the history of peoples, and to the twentieth century,
when sociological considerations characterized everyday language as
a system of communication. Language, in other words, is recognized
as a fundamental, highly charged cultural medium. In fact, it is the
center of a culture.
Since all cultural products are language-embedded, they are texts
open to interpretation. Recently, language has been intimately con-
nected to culture through explorations of meaning and meaning-making,
a territory for observations regarding individual empowerment and
the role of the media in the discourse of society. Language allows
individuals to name things and make them present in their minds;
it is a constitutive element of social identity; language also con-
tinues to be appropriated by mass communication to augment
comprehension, ensure compliance, and secure conformity. In this
context, language use is an ideological practice that reflects knowl-
edge, beliefs, attitudes, and relevant social or political constraints as
it delivers the power of naming to mass communication for its
representations of the world.
Writing as a technology, capable of circulating ideas in time and
space, permits cultural or political indoctrination with the help of
an increasingly sophisticated media technology. But even in its most
advanced forms of persuasion – for example in advertising and pro-
paganda – mass communication still relies on the mythical force of
the word to gain influence through strategies that are based on the
use of language. In fact, language becomes the source of commod-
ification, when meanings are subverted as styles are created and
circulated to fit market demands.
The use of propaganda (or persuasion) is as old as the need for
social control and has accompanied human history from ancient
promoters of war or peace to modern strategists of conflict resolu-
tion. Propaganda is an institutional activity in the hands of govern-
ments, political parties, and religious or private organizations; it relies

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