Page 84 - Myths for the Masses An Essay on Mass Communication

Mass Communication and the Promise of Democracy

access to the means of communication that support democratic
practices which benefit society as a whole. Thus, the undisputed
centrality of mass communication has been a recurring concern
throughout its history, whenever special interests own and control
the media.
Beginning with the bourgeois revolution against aristocratic rule,
means of mass communication have been effectively applied in
hegemonic struggles and subsequently controlled by those in power.
There has never been an outright sharing of space or time, or free
access to major media outlets for all relevant political operatives in
a democratic society. Instead, opposition has either been marginal-
ized and confined to its own process of mass communication, or
coopted and integrated into expressions of the dominant ideology.
In addition, of course, advanced industrial capitalism produced com-
mercial interests that have gained significant control over the media
to succeed in industrializing the manufacture and dissemination of
information and entertainment.Their powerful hold on the media,
including their ideological formation, has brought political interests
under their control and defined the democratic landscape.
The understandable fear of media effects has been widespread,
beginning with the paternalistic conceptualization of the “fourth
estate” as a public watchdog and ending, most recently in the United
States, with the invention of “public journalism” and its articulation
of media obligations to society in response to much older insights
into corporate uses of the power of mass communication over
people.
These concerns have typically been expressed in cautions regard-
ing media uses which have accompanied the rise of mass commu-
nication, starting with printed matter and accelerating with the
introduction of visual and electronic media. Such an unease has
focused on traditionally contested areas of freedom of mass com-
munication, including social and moral control over public expres-
sion. The latter issues have not significantly changed over the
centuries, although the degree of public tolerance undoubtedly has.
For instance, fear for the moral health of movie-going children,
dismay over violence on the television screen, and consternation
over exposure to pornography on the internet or in recordings have
prompted campaigns against media practices – with mixed results.

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