mass-communication-theory

Chapter 8 The Emergence of Critical and Cultural Theories of Mass Communication 229
semiotic democracy (Chapter 2), and we’ll revisit it in Chapter 9’s discussion of reception
studies.
One researcher whose work combines the popular culture approach with neo-
Marxist theory is Larry Grossberg (1983, 1989). His take on popular culture “signals
[the] belief in an emerging change in the discursive formations of contemporary
intellectual life, a change that cuts across the humanities and the social sciences. It
suggests that the proper horizon for interpretive activity, whatever its object and
whatever its disciplinary base, is the entire field of cultural practices, all of which
give meaning, texture, and structure to human life” (Grossberg and Nelson, 1988,
p. 1). Although his synthesis has proved controversial (O’Connor, 1989), it gained
wide attention. Part of its popularity stems from Grossberg’s application of contemporary
European theories to the study of popular culture. More recently, he has
moved more toward neo-Marxist theory and has coedited two large anthologies of
research, Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture (Nelson and Grossberg, 1988)
and Cultural Studies (Grossberg, Nelson, and Treichler, 1992).
The serious study of popular culture poses a direct challenge to mass society theory,
the limited-effects perspective, and notions of high culture for several reasons. In
asserting the power of audiences to make meaning, popular culture researchers grant
a respect to average people that is absent from mass society and limited-effects
thinking. In treating popular culture as culturally important and worthy of study,
they challenge high culture’s bedrock assumption of the inherent quality of highculture
artifacts like symphonies and opera. In suggesting that individual audience
members use media content to create personally relevant meaning, they open the
possibility of media effects that are consumer-generated or -allowed. In short, in arguing
the crucial cultural role played by the interaction of people and media texts,
researchers studying popular culture lend support to all the cultural theories.
MARSHALL MCLUHAN: THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE AND
THE MASSAGE
During the 1960s, a Canadian literary scholar, Marshall McLuhan, gained worldwide
prominence as someone who had a profound understanding of electronic media
and their impact on both culture and society. McLuhan was highly trained in
literary criticism but also read widely in communication theory and history. Although
his writings contain few citations to Marx (McLuhan actually castigated
Marx for ignoring communication), he based much of his understanding of media’s
historical role on the work of Harold Innis, a Canadian political economist. Still, in
his theory, McLuhan synthesized many other diverse ideas. We place him at the
end of this chapter because his most influential writing was done in the 1960s,
when cultural studies emerged as a serious challenge to limited-effects perspectives
on media. But his work anticipates the development of the culture-centered theories
that are the focus of Chapter 11 and so can be read as a preface to much of what is
covered in that chapter.
With James Carey, whom many consider the founder of American cultural
studies and who shared McLuhan’s respect for Innis, McLuhan did much to inspire
and legitimize macroscopic theories of media, culture, and society in North America.
He wrote at a time when the limited-effects perspective had reached the peak of its
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