Page 86 - Myths for the Masses An Essay on Mass Communication

Mass Communication and the Promise of Democracy

by the limited availability of intellectual labor or creative talent. In
any case, what remains is a well-founded need for widespread par-
ticipation, particularly among the working class, whose expectations
for inclusionary politics continue to grow with increased literacy
and education, and despite lacking material prosperity.
Since democracy is identified with capitalism (in the United
States), the democratization of mass communication is predomi-
nantly an economic issue that focuses on the power of media
corporations and their influence on the planning and execution of
mass communication strategies in pursuit of private profit and at
the expense of public interests.Their creation of consumer demand
is backed by advertising revenues and demonstrates the workings of
market relationships that control the mass communication pro-
cess. The United States is a business, operating under a business
ideology.
A democratic vision of mass communication, on the other hand,
is based on establishing more humane conditions of existence, which
include a liberation from the influence of privileged commercial
interests. Change demands a set of different actors, such as cooper-
atives, community owners, public-interest control, or employee
ownership of the means of mass communication, for a more bal-
anced relationship than the one that is based on a predominantly
corporate media economy. The question of public participation
hinges on an ideology of participation, or on a public commitment
to the task of creating and maintaining an environment for demo-
cratic communication.
Participation in the process of mass communication is based on
the principle of access. Its understanding begins with the issue of
competence and includes the acquisition of literacy, communication
skills, levels of education, and expert knowledge; it continues with
questions of controlling the production of content and the uses of
dissemination technologies. It also involves the notion of economic
affordability, which begins with the cost of (higher) education and
ends with the price of a quality newspaper or magazine – includ-
ing marginalized publications – as a source of continuing education.
The latter is an important consideration, because lack of educa-
tion affects communicative competence, and lack of access to an
informed discourse leads to social or political blindness; it may even

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