Page 78 - Myths for the Masses An Essay on Mass Communication
P. 78

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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