Chapter 1
All experiences in everyday life are connected to media. Much of media consists of data, content and
experiences produced by us. There are no mass audiences anymore, but there is mass media and
mass communication.
Livingstone says: everything is mediated – from childhood to war … nothing remains unmediated.
Mass communication has always been constitutive of society. However, last decades there is rapidly
expanding media technologies that have accelerated human communication on unprecedented
scale.
Media and mass communication theory is crucial to consider. Jensen speaks of double hermeneutics’
typical of the field: as media scholars interpret a reality (e.g. a text) that has already been interpreted
by the senders and receivers of media.
Fundamental assumptions of study media and mass communication:
- … are pervasive and ubiquitous
- … act upon people and their social environments
- … change both the environment and the person
- The primary goals and questions of researchers are to demonstrate the various effects of
media and mass communication and explain how they come about.
Mass communication: refers to messages transmitted to a large audience via one or more media.
This term was created (just like mass media) to describe what was a new social phenomenon in 20 th
century. Mass media were born into the context and conflicts of this age of transition (migration and
conflicts) and have continued to be deeply implicated in the trends and changes of society.
Media: the means of transmission of such messages.
Media theory: considers how these messages mean different things to different people.
Early mass media (e.g. newspapers) developed rapidly.
Key features of mass media:
- Capacity to reach many people rapidly
- Universal fascination they hold
- Their simulation of hopes and fears
- Presumed relation to sources of power in society
- Assumption of great impact
Mass communication, large-scale + one-way flow of public content, are also carried online. There is
also another kind of system that has emerged due to the internet: mass self-communication. It is
mass-communication because it reaches global audience, it is self-communication because it is self-
directed in the sending of the message, self-reflected in reception of message, and self-defined in
terms of formation of communication space.
No doubting the continuing significance of mass media in contemporary society in the spheres of
politics, culture, social life and economics.
Political: media provide arena of debate and set of channels for making policy. Through mass self-
communication, the political realm becomes accessible to many actors.
Culture: media are main channel of cultural representation, and primary source of images of social
reality. However, media has become playground of symbolic struggles over meaning.
Social life: strongly patterned by routines of media use and infused by its contents through the way
leisure time is spent.
Economic aspect: media have grown in economic value with many corporations dominating the
media market, with influence extending through sport, travel, leisure etc.
, Main themes in the book:
- Time. Communication takes place in time and it matters when and how long. Technology has
increased speed, it also stores information for recovery later.
- Place. Communication is produced in a given location and reflects features of that context. It
serves to define a place for its inhabitants and to establish identity. It connects places,
reducing the distance that separate us. Delocalizing effect.
- Power. Social relationships are structured by power, where the will of one party is imposed.
Communication has no power of compulsion, but it is an invariable component and a
frequent means of exercise of power.
- Social reality. Assumption behind classical theory of media and mass communication is that
we inhabit a ‘real’ world of material circumstances that can be known. The media provide us
with reports of this reality, varying in accuracy. The notion of truth is often applied as
standers to contents of news however this is difficult to assess.
- Meaning. Continually arises concerns interpretation of the message of mass media. Theories
depend on assumption being made about the meaning of what they carry, viewed from point
of sender/receiver/observer.
- Causation and determinism. It is in the nature of theory to try to solve questions of cause and
effect. Questions of cause arise in relation to the consequences of media messages on
individuals, and in relation to historical questions of the rise of media institutions in first
place.
- Mediation. Alternative to idea of cause and effect: media provides occasions etc. for
information to circulate. Process of mediation influences the meaning received.
- Identity. Refers to individual sense of wholeness (self-identity) and to shared sense of
belonging to culture etc. (social identity) and involves factors like work/religion.
- Cultural difference. Study of media-related issues reminds us how much the workings of
mass communication and media institutions are affected by differences in culture.
- Governance. Refers to all the means by which the various media are regulated and controlled
by laws, customs etc. as well as by market management.
Issues discussed in the book relate to questions on which public opinion often forms, on which
governments may be expected to have policies, or on which media themselves might have some
responsibility. Political could be: propaganda or media role in relation to war, cultural: globalization
of content, social: links to aggression and violence, normative: freedom of speech, economic: degree
of concentration.
Limitations of coverage and perspective
Authors have a subjective position that shape their experience, knowledge and outlook.
Mass communication phenomenon is not independent of the cultural context in which it is observed.
This account of theory (US and EU being ‘modernized’) has an inevitable western bias. This means
conclusions are provisional. writers have endeavored to include a wide range of voices to nuance
perspective to suit for regional histories.
Book’s focus is on ‘developed’ nation states mass media, with free-market etc. Mass media are
experienced differently in non-western societies. The study of mass communication cannot avoid
dealing with questions of values and political and social conflict. All societies have tensions, media
are inevitably involved. It is important to consider theories in context.
Field of media theory is also characterized by widely divergent perspectives. Difference of approach
between progressive and conservative tendencies can sometimes be discerned. Progressive: critical
of power exercised by media, while conservative points to the ‘liberal bias’ of the news. Also, critical
versus administrative orientation. Critical: seeks to expose underlying problems of media practice.
Administrative: aims to harness an understanding of communication processes to solving practical
problems of media more effectively.
