Page 70 - Myths for the Masses An Essay on Mass Communication

Mass Communication and the Promise of Democracy

nected since the expansion of the Roman empire, have entered a
new partnership in the wake of a post-imperialist period of an
expanding global authority.
In this context, the idea of mass communication has undergone
an ideological critique that confronts the dominant philosophical
foundation of American mass communication theory – a mixture
of Pragmatism and liberal pluralism – with a Marxist analysis. The
latter represents a philosophy of praxis which is closely linked to an
interest in political outcomes.The ensuing project of responding to
the real conditions of communication in contemporary society
yields two related insights into the place of mass communication:
its centrality across the social, economic, political, and cultural
spheres of society – and beyond its boundaries – and, therefore, its
conspicuousness in what Enzensberger has called the industrializa-
tion of the mind. Both insights point to the pervasiveness of mass
communication as a social process not only across specific spheres
of society, but also across specific technologies (or media) on a global
scale. They continue to guide the search for viable explanations in
debates over cultural imperialism, specifically, and the question of
effects, in general.
Cultural imperialism, however, also faces the potential of culture
as an open and receptive environment, which prospers under the
impact of external influences and the success of cross-cultural com-
munication. The latter depends on the mode of interpretation and
the strength and diversity of mass communication in an interna-
tional context. Robert Park suggested as early as the late 1930s that
the past experience and present temper of an audience are by far
the most important conditions for understanding and appreciating
information (or news) from abroad, because only cultural traits that
are understood are also assimilated, and they are understood only as
they are assimilated. He privileges the process of meaning-making
by those exposed to mass communication, which plays an impor-
tant role as a conveyor of cultural traits and a source for interpre-
tive practices.
More generally, the idea of mass communication is drawn into a
process of theorizing the role and function of media among philo-
sophical considerations of a democratic existence under new con-
ditions of industrial growth and urbanization.

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