mass-communication-theory

In each era, the emergence of important conflicting perspectives can best be
seen as the accomplishment of a research community working within the constraints
imposed by its own values, preexisting ideas, and research standards. Each
research community was also constrained by competing theories, limited financial
resources, externally imposed political restrictions, and values held in the larger
society. Although isolated theorists can produce innovative conceptualizations,
research communities recognize, develop, and then popularize these notions. We
will consider how such communities have grown and functioned as we describe
the theories they fostered or rejected.
THE ERA OF MASS SOCIETY AND MASS CULTURE
elites
People occupying
elevated or privileged
positions in
a social system
mass society
theory
Perspective on
Western, industrial
society that
attributes an influential
but often
negative role to
media
Chapter 2 Four Eras of Mass Communication Theory 27
Our description of the eras of mass communication theory begins with a review
of some of the earliest thinking about media. These ideas were initially developed
in the latter half of the nineteenth century, at a time when rapid development of
large factories in urban areas was drawing more and more people from rural
areas to cities. At the same time, ever more powerful printing presses allowed the
creation of newspapers that could be sold at declining prices to rapidly growing
populations of readers. Although some theorists were optimistic about the future
that would be created by industrialization, urban expansion, and the rise of print
media, many were extremely pessimistic (Brantlinger, 1983). They blamed industrialization
for disrupting peaceful, rural communities and forcing people to live
in urban areas merely to serve as a convenient workforce in large factories, mines,
or bureaucracies. These theorists were fearful of cities because of their crime, cultural
diversity, and unstable political systems. For these social thinkers, mass media
symbolized everything that was wrong with nineteenth-century urban life.
They singled out media for virulent criticism and accused them of pandering to
lower-class tastes, fomenting political unrest, and subverting important cultural
norms. Most theorists were educated elites who feared what they couldn’t understand.
The old social order was crumbling, and so were its culture and politics.
Were media responsible for this, or did they simply accelerate or aggravate these
changes?
The dominant perspective on media and society that emerged during this period
has come to be referred to as mass society theory. It is an inherently contradictory
theory rooted in nostalgia for a “golden age” of rural community life that
never existed, and it anticipates a nightmare future where we all lose our individuality
and become servants to the machines. Some version of mass society theory
seems to recur in every generation as we try to reassess where we are and where
we are going as individuals and as a nation wedded to technology as the means of
improving the quality of our lives. Each new version of mass society theory has its
criticisms of contemporary media. It is surprising that the Internet has not yet become
the focus of a new version of mass society theory. These criticisms do exist,
but they have not yet become popular in the way that complaints about television,
radio, movies, newspapers, even comic books, came to dominate public discourse
in previous eras. Perhaps this is a sign that mass society notions have ceased to be
relevant. Or more likely, the Internet is still relatively new and its threats to social
order are still too ambiguous to be taken seriously by elites.
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