Page 90 - Myths for the Masses An Essay on Mass Communication

Mass Communication and the Promise of Democracy

ical reminders of attempts to break with the industrial models of
mass communication.
Moreover, media content – from news to entertainment – was
adjusted to serve a growing market by providing more access to
information and entertainment as goods or services, instead of con-
tributing to the development of more democratic practices with
opportunities for emancipation. Intellectual freedom is never the
issue as long as journalists or other creative workers remain sub-
servient to media ownership, while the latter insist on being iden-
tified with democratic practices and the idea of press freedom.
Indeed, press freedom evolves for all practical purposes into an
institutional protection of ownership and property, rather than into
a protection of journalists or writers, for instance, against the special
interests of proprietors.The continued use of the notion of a fourth
estate, initially a British creation, serves to underline the paternalis-
tic, authoritative role of the media in contemporary society and begs
the question (again): in whose interests do media operate, and what
is the role of journalists, or, for that matter, of readers?
The dilemma of contemporary journalism, frequently addressed
in economic terms and focused on the changing nature of media
ownership, is the end-product of a preferred cultural construction
of journalists. Such a construction is a historical phenomenon which
has its roots in the making of American journalism and the
relationship between the institution of the press and the individual
contribution of labor. In fact, the idea of journalism as a cultural
practice has undergone significant definitional changes related to
shifting notions of work, including technological advances in the
workplace, and the predicament of a volatile market economy as
media interests merged with the politics of mass society.
The press has rarely been a facilitator of intellectual labor free
from a business-oriented paternalism that directs journalists in
their work. The social and political consequences of a hegemonic
approach to professionalism are the demise of traditional notions of
journalistic practices and the rise of corporate power and control
over the contemporary role and function of journalists, the manner
of mass communication, and the purposes of the media in general.
Such conclusions also have serious consequences for society and
the relationship between information, knowledge, and democracy.

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