Page 46 - Myths for the Masses An Essay on Mass Communication

Mass Communication and the Promise of Democracy

United States) from historical explanation to scientific analysis.This
trend – which has made inroads into European and Asian cultures
– is reflected in a primary interest in opinions and opinion-making
rather than in knowledge or systems of knowledge, with an insis-
tence on the significance of aggregates of information or empiri-
cally verifiable relations of ideas that rely on a lack of historical
context to focus on the immediacy of the moment.
Mass communication meets the requirements of a scientific
outlook that embraces the consequences of the scientific process
rather than engaging in a search for its historical sources.Thus, spec-
ulative or impressionistic thought regarding the historical position
of mass communication has been replaced by questions about its
impact or effect. Journalism became an important arena for testing
the effectiveness of an ensuing ideological discourse that would
change traditional relations between media and society.

VI

Thus, with the nineteenth century drawing to a close, the means of
mass communication became identified with specific demands of
consumption: books and academic journals for a cultural elite, news-
papers and magazines for a general public, the stage for literary
crowds, and movies for illiterates or immigrants, and a new industrial
middle class, whose hunger for entertainment spawned a popular
culture industry that would ignite an ideological struggle between
supporters of high and low culture in the 1950s. In fact, mass com-
munication identifies and defines class interests by catering to par-
ticular taste cultures in society, which reinforces class differences and
which led, two generations later, to a distinct separation of interests
and knowledge regarding media uses and the process of mass
communication.
Although local culture still benefited from these developments at
the beginning of the twentieth century, which promised social and
technological progress – local newspapers prevailed, as did local
theaters or movie houses and local clubs with local musical talent
abounding – there were signs of consolidation, with an expanding
national culture on the horizon.

34