Page 78 - Myths for the Masses An Essay on Mass Communication
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Mass Communication and the Promise of Democracy
Consequently, mass communication as a social phenomenon has
become a prominent research topic with references to social, cul-
tural, political, and economic practices that embrace the idea of
communication as information. At issue are typically questions of
compliance with the pronouncements of the reigning social, eco-
nomic, and political practices – and therefore control of informa-
tion and information flows couched in terms of media effects –
rather than issues regarding the absence of or resistance to such
effects. To paraphrase Antonio Gramsci, the hegemonic struggle
involves captivating, not capturing, the masses, with a media envi-
ronment that will always distract from the real conditions of society.
This culture of distraction becomes the territory of administrative
mass communication research.
Thus, accessibility of media technologies and standardization of
content – or what Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer called
the industrialization of culture – are the foundations of an infor-
mation society that exists with the expenditure of a minimum of
communicative effort or competence. Their combined effects –
important for military and economic purposes during periods of
external and internal competition and conflict – constitute the tan-
gible evidence of production and consumption practices. They
provide a measure of mass communication in society that speaks to
the distribution of power and influence. Under these conditions,
progress in mass communication research is the accumulation of
knowledge based on perfecting prediction and control of media and
information phenomena.
Even today, the attempt to understand the notion of media effects
and their consequences through experimentation and manipulation
(of variables), in particular, reflects a central concern of the field as
it continues to relate to social, commercial, and political issues of
society. It also constitutes a major preoccupation with methodologi-
cal issues at the expense of theorizing communication or developing
alternative models of media applications.The lingering popularity of
mass communication research as a legitimate social scientific enter-
prise has helped strengthen the institutional claims of the media
industry on leadership and control in society.
By the end of the 1970s the social scientific gaze of the observer
enforced a regime of decontextualization or randomization that
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