Page 73 - Myths for the Masses An Essay on Mass Communication

Mass Communication and the Promise of Democracy

fraternity, liberty, equality, and free intercommunication among
individuals.
Nowadays, references to community have an emotional appeal
that is used to imply social, psychological, and geographical prox-
imity as well as a sense of security in the process of incorporation.
Since communication is central to the idea of community, its
characteristics are reproduced in the process of mass communica-
tion to cater to the communicative potential of individuals or
groups in society. Consequently, technologies of communication,
from highway systems to telephonic traffic and broadcasting net-
works, reproduce the comforts of physical and psychological prox-
imity, suggest immediacy, and claim intimacy. They are built on an
appreciation of communication as a form of social organization.
The desire to identify with communal roots also fosters the idea
of nation and society and reinforces social and political homogene-
ity. As a result, individuals may feel closer to each other or to
the events of the world, but they are also more isolated in their
mediated experiences, since the speed of electronic travel breeds
alienation.
Philosophical or theoretical guidance in matters of social com-
munication has been historically divided between a nostalgic view
of society as community and a progressive vision of society as
empire; both cross ideological boundaries to assert their respective
poses. Thus, bourgeois and Marxist aspirations to democratic com-
munication are strikingly similar. They are based on personal com-
mitment, communal needs, and collective investments, although they
may differ in their understanding of change, or disagree in their
assignment of power. Indeed, the assumptions of a democratic life,
steeped in the ideology of free-market capitalism, have remained
unchallenged by political forces – such as opposition parties – or
social philosophers, including Pragmatists. Instead, criticism and sug-
gestions for change have stayed true to the dominant ideological
narrative of the American dream, which upholds communal values
and promises a better life.
Thus, the progressive industrialization of the media, from rotary
presses to radio sets, television receivers, and computer screens, has
been accompanied by an optimistic belief in the betterment of
society through improved access to mass communication as each

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