Page 98 - Myths for the Masses An Essay on Mass Communication

Mass Communication and the Promise of Democracy

became a domestic product, and the presence of local talent gave
way to the packaging of fame and the rise of national stars. This
decisive shift from the political concerns and cultural specificities of
a William Allan White to the national agenda of broadcasting net-
works, and later to the geopolitical focus of a Rupert Murdoch,
for instance – had extraordinary consequences for the political and
cultural life of society.
The creation of national (and international) markets and the pro-
duction of national (and international) television broadcast audi-
ences for commercial purposes has solidified the power of economic
interests over the means of mass communication.These interests are
confirmed (and strengthened) by subsequent political decisions to
eliminate regulatory hurdles, for instance, and streamline control
over broadcast licenses.The politics of deregulation has validated the
sharp turn to a strategy of persuasion that has redirected media
attention (including print) from information to entertainment.This
shift has affected the quality of news and, more fundamentally, the
nature of journalism; it has become a business whose function is the
satisfaction of needs for diversion rather than for information.
The consequences for a democratic society are catastrophic,
however, when journalism falls under the purview of an entertain-
ment industry, and the task of engaging in surveillance and an inde-
pendent critique of political practices becomes the responsibility of
gag writers and comedians. The reduction of mass communication
to a process of responding to what people want is the result of free-
market policies that privilege the intent of commerce to promote
and sell, while ignoring the complicated task required of the media
in the interest of advancing the cause of a democratic society. Mass
communication has been permanently installed in a system of
marketing the industrialization of civil society. The survival of the
democratic practices of mass communication – if it is possible at all
– calls for diversity of ownership and purpose of operations as well
as of content, and requires reinforcement and protection of the
(political) information function of the media.
The loss of this perspective, with its cultural roots in the history
of mass communication, and journalism in particular, may have
brought about an artistic critique that surfaces in movies from
Citizen Kane to Network, but without much critical response from

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