mass-communication-theory

CULTURAL STUDIES: TRANSMISSIONAL VERSUS RITUAL
PERSPECTIVES
transmissional
perspective
View of mass
communication
as merely the
process of transmitting
messages
from a distance
for the purpose of
control
ritual perspective
View of mass
communication
as the representation
of shared
belief where reality
is produced,
maintained,
repaired, and
transformed
Chapter 8 The Emergence of Critical and Cultural Theories of Mass Communication 227
James Carey was a leading American proponent of cultural studies, writing and
speaking prolifically for the past three decades. At a time when U.S. media researchers
viewed most cultural studies work with suspicion and skepticism, Carey, in a series
of seminal essays (1989), drew on the work of British and Canadian scholars to
defend cultural studies and contrast it with the limited-effects perspective. One essential
difference he found is that limited-effects theories focus on the transmission of
accurate information from a dominant source to passive receivers, whereas cultural
studies is concerned with the everyday rituals we rely on to structure and interpret
our experiences. Carey argued that the limited-effects view is tied to the transmissional
perspective—the idea that mass communication is the “process of transmitting
messages at a distance for the purpose of control. The archetypal case … then is persuasion,
attitude change, behavior modification, socialization through the transmission
of information, influence, or conditioning” (Newcomb and Hirsch, 1983, p.
46). In the transmissional perspective, car commercials attempt to persuade us to
buy a certain make of automobile, and political campaign messages are simply that:
campaign messages designed to cause us to vote one way or another. They might or
might not be effective in causing us to act as they intend.
The ritual perspective, on the other hand, views mass communication as “not
directed toward the extension of messages in space but the maintenance of society
in time; not the act of imparting information but the representation of shared beliefs”
(Newcomb and Hirsch, 1983, p. 46). Carey (1975a, p. 177) believed, in
other words, that “communication is a symbolic process whereby reality is produced,
maintained, repaired, and transformed.” According to Carey, a car commercial
sells more than transportation. It is, depending on its actual content, possibly
reaffirming the American sense of independence (“Chevy, the American Revolution!”),
reinforcing cultural notions of male and female attractiveness (we don’t
see many homely actors in these ads), or extolling the personal value of consumption,
regardless of the product itself (“Be the first on your block to have one”).
Similarly, political campaign messages often say much more about our political system
and us as a people than they say about the candidates featured in them.
Carey traced the origin of the ritual view to hermeneutic literary criticism.
Scholars who study great literary works have long argued that these texts have
far-reaching, long-lasting, and powerful effects on society. A classic example is the
impact that Shakespeare has had on Western culture. By reshaping or transforming
culture, these works indirectly influence even those who have never read or even
heard of them. Literary scholars argue that contemporary cultures are analyzed
and defined through their arts, including those arts that depend on media technology.
These scholars have not been interested in finding evidence of direct media effects
on individuals. They are more concerned with macroscopic questions of
cultural evolution—the culture defining itself for itself. Thus ritual perspective theorists
presume a grand-scale interaction between the culture, the media used to
convey that culture, and the individual media content consumers of that culture.
During the 1970s and 1980s, some communication theorists began to move
away from more transmissionally oriented questions like “What effects do media
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