mass-communication-theory

114 Section 2 The Era of Mass Society and Mass Culture
areas. Nevertheless, her reports violated professional standards of truth and accuracy.
Cooke was fired, and the Pulitzer Prize was returned. The Post expressed profound
embarrassment, and its legendary editor, Ben Bradlee, called it the worst
failure of his long career.
SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY THEORY OF THE PRESS:
A POSTWAR COMPROMISE
Chicago School
Social researchers
at the University
of Chicago in the
1940s who envisioned
modern
cities as “Great
Communities”
made up of hundreds
of interrelated
small
groups
pluralistic groups
In a Great Community,
the various
segments
defined by
specific unifying
characteristics
Despite moves toward professionalization and self-regulation, pressure for greater
government regulation of media mounted throughout World War II and continued
during the anti-Communist agitation that followed. In response, Henry Luce,
CEO of Time Inc., provided funding for an independent commission to make
recommendations concerning the role of the press. The Hutchins Commission
on Freedom of the Press was established in 1942 and released a major report of
its findings in 1947 (Davis, 1990; Mclntyre, 1987). Its members consisted of leaders
from many areas of society, including academics, politicians, and heads of
social groups.
Commission members were sharply divided between those who held strongly
Libertarian views and those who thought some form of press regulation was necessary.
Those who favored regulation were fearful that the “marketplace of
ideas” was much too vulnerable to subversion by antidemocratic forces. Several
of these proponents of regulation were guided by notions about public communication
developed by social researchers at the University of Chicago—the Chicago
School. The Chicago School envisioned modern cities as “Great Communities”
composed of hundreds of small social groups—everything from neighborhood
social organizations to citywide associations. For these Great Communities to
develop, all the constituent groups had to work together and contribute. These
were referred to as pluralistic groups in recognition of their cultural and racial diversity
(Davis, 1990).
The Chicago School opposed marketplace-of-ideas notions and argued that unregulated
mass media inevitably served the interests and tastes of large or socially
dominant groups. Small, weak, pluralistic groups would be either neglected or denigrated.
(Recall the “compromise” that produced the Radio Act of 1927 discussed
earlier.) This perspective also held that ruthless elites could use media as a means of
gaining personal political power. These demagogues could manipulate media to transmit
propaganda to fuel hatred and fear among a majority and unite them against minorities.
Hitler’s use of media to arouse hatred of the Jews served as a prime example.
To prevent this tyranny by the majority and to mandate support for pluralistic
groups, some commission members favored creation of a public agency—a press
council—made up of people much like themselves and having the power to prevent
publication of hate propaganda. In the view of these Hutchins Commission members,
this “new and independent agency [would] appraise and report annually
upon the performance of the press.” It would base that appraisal on its comparison
of “the accomplishments of the press with the aspirations which the people have
for it” (in Bates, 2001). This agency might, for example, have required that newspapers
devote a certain portion of their coverage to minority groups. Or it might
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