Page 93 - Myths for the Masses An Essay on Mass Communication

Mass Communication and the Promise of Democracy

own potential – a feature of liberalism – has resulted in the liber-
ation from slavery, despotism, and other ills brought about later by
industrial interests. Given the centrality of communication in any
democratic society, the contemporary task must include liberation
from ignorance, from lack of communicative competence, and from
institutions, like mass media, that are oppressive or non-responsive
to issues of participation and democratic communication. In fact,
John Dewey described this emancipatory condition once, when he
argued that genuine freedom is intellectual, because it resides in
trained thought and the ability to look at matters objectively. Given
the fact that human fulfillment is found in communication and
shared experience, opportunities must be created within the mass
communication process to accommodate individual empowerment.
The need for change is a condition of existence that prevails in
contemporary societies; only a free, knowledgeable, and commu-
nicatively competent individual will be able to address options and
suggest new directions in the liberating atmosphere of a parti-
cipatory democracy. The development of mass communication,
nonetheless, shows a steady decline of the relevance and even
importance of its offerings for the lives of people whose alienation
from society has affected democratic practices. John Dewey’s defin-
ition of radicalism as a perception of need for drastic change led
him to conclude that any liberalism which is not also radicalism is
irrelevant and doomed. It also reflects his impatience. The time for
introducing radical change is still at hand – not on the part of the
culture industry, with predictable outcomes, but through the intel-
lectual engagement and political imagination of individuals who see
the means of mass communication as a public trust.

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Initially however, the cause of mass communication as a construc-
tive element in an ideology of progress was helped by a celebration
of the relationship between technology and democracy. It was an
expression of confidence in the merger of private enterprise and
public interest and cast aside doubts – if there were any – about its
consequences for societal communication. Indeed, the mass media

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