Page 61 - Myths for the Masses An Essay on Mass Communication

Mass Communication and the Promise of Democracy

the contemporary conditions of work as well as the public interest,
among other issues.
The consolidation of media and politics has all but eliminated
the notion of journalism as the fourth estate and introduces signif-
icant definitional changes to the traditional idea of journalism as a
cultural practice. Indeed, the predominance of a marketing orienta-
tion in newswork results in a shifting conception of newsroom
labor.
More specifically, the media have rarely been facilitators of intel-
lectual labor free from a business-oriented paternalism that directs
journalists – or writers – in their work. But the significant rise of
corporate power and control over the contemporary role and func-
tion of journalists, in particular, threatens the demise of traditional
notions of journalistic practices; by prescribing the manner of mass
communication and redirecting the social and political purposes of
the media in general, journalistic practices are being redefined to
match the new expectations of the news business.
And yet, the myth of a forceful and impartial press, operating in
the interest of society, prevailed throughout this period, strength-
ened – no doubt – by self-promotion, including the writing of cel-
ebratory histories of journalism, and by extraordinary journalistic
accomplishments that have more to do with indulging the individ-
ual activities of enterprising journalists than with the social con-
sciousness of media ownership.
Indeed, the labor of journalists has been successfully contained
within the organizational media structure through a ritual of appro-
priation, a historical process of incorporating journalists into the
system of information-gathering and news production while dom-
inating the conditions of employment and the definition of work.
Consequently, newsroom cultures are undergoing dramatic changes.
Since the conditions of journalism in modernity are shaped by a
shift to new technologies and new strategies of serving the infor-
mation needs of specific segments of society, they make different
demands on journalists and their relations to each other and to their
institutions – and they affect the notion of work itself.The result is
not only an increasing sense of alienation but a changing percep-
tion of what constitutes journalism and, therefore, of public inter-
est and social responsibility at the beginning of the twenty-first

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