APPROACHES TO
THE RELATIONSHIP
BETWEEN MEDIA
AND SOCIETY
MASS SOCIETY APPROACH
• Sees society as an integrated whole, with structures and
institutions holding power and authority and exerting control over
society
• Media is seen as a powerful agent in establishing control in
societies
• Media was owned by elite classes
• Public is a passive recipient and consumer of media content
BASE-SUPERSTRUCTURE MODEL
• Media institutions are part of the superstructure, along with other
social and cultural institutions
• Media generate ideas that serve the interests of the economic and
political elite, thereby reinforcing and reproducing the
relationships that prove the dominance of capitalism and the
exploitation of the masses.
• The extent of media’s power is unassailable; society is treated as a
mass of atomized individuals
Superstructuremaintains and
legitimate the
base
Base- shapes the
superstructure
Social Constructionism
• Refers to the processes by which events, persons, values
and ideas are first defined or interpreted in a certain way
and given value and priority, largely by mass media,
leading to the (personal construction) of larger pictures
of reality.