COMM 205 THEORIES OF
MASS COMMUNICATION
Mass Society Theory
Mass Communication Theory
Scientific Method
• Scientific method seeks a cause- affect relation which is easy to see
in physical world.
Social sciences have difficulty in applying this. Why scientific method
cannot be applied to human behaviours?
• Human behaviours are not measurable.
• Human behaviour is complex.
• Humans have purpose and their behaviours are self-reflexive.
• Things in the physical world are not debatable. But humans have
reason and motivations to behave like this or that. .
Among social scientists there are people who think they are pure
scientists but some others find themselves humanists.
Theories by scholars
In communication studies, theories are defined by different people in a different
ways:
• Littlejohn, 1996 Theory is a scholar’s best representation of some state of
affairs based on systematic observation.
• E.M. Griffin, 1994 Theory explains an event or behaviour. It brings clarity to
an otherwise jumbled situation’ it draws order out of chaos… synthesizes
the data, focuses our attention on what’s crucial, helps us ignore that which
makes little difference.
• K. Miller, 2002 Different schools will define theory in different ways
depending on their needs and beliefs about the social world.
• D. McQuail, 1994 Social scientific: Hypotheses are tested by observation.
(TV broadcasting and violence link).
Normative theory: How media should be.
Operational theory: How media should be to meet some specific needs.
Everyday theory: Every one has his/her own theory about the media.
• Littlejohn- Miller Critical theory is concerned with the conflict of interests in
society and the ways communication perpetuates domination of one group
over another. It tries to change.
Mass Communication theory
according to their goals
• SOCIAL SCIENTIFIC
Seeks measurable tendencies in a phenomena or
situation.
• CRITICAL
Seeks changes in social order.
• HERMENEUTIC
Seeks an understanding by interpretations of
media texts.
• SOCIAL HERMENEUTIC
Seeks an understanding of meaning of any social
situation from the point of view those who live.
MASS SOCIETY THEORY
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
A-Early Examples: (before and after 1970s)
Ferdinand Tonnies analyzed earlier and 19th century forms of European social organisation and
divided
folk communities ( gemeinschaft) : family, tradition, small villages, basic social institution and rigid
social control over the members of society, unwritten norms, web of mutual interdependence,
group given by nature to people. Gemeinschaft has both strengths and limitations.
and modern industrial society (gesellschaft): People have troublesome of this society and mass
media disrupt gemeinschaft ties in this society. Formal written regulations, rational and impersonal
urban industrial social organisations. Social elites in earlier forms loose their power. Job contract,
marriage wov...Lots of divorced people, single parents are becoming ordinary parts of today’s
societies.
Media have been breaking down gemeinschaft and encouraging gesellschaft.
Emile Durkheim’s Mechanical and Organic solidarity
Mechanical solidarity old communities like machines in which people are bound by a consensus to
perform traditional social roles in this durable and ordered machine.
Organic solidarity social ties that bind modern social order together. Specialization, division of
labor and interdependence. In this system people are no longer bound by traditional values but
were free to follow their personal passion and needs. Durkheim sees the solution of problems in
modern social life are products of this form of life like sociologists rather than turning back to the
old form of social organisation.
B- Contemporary Mass Society Theory:
Mass Society Theory
• In USA scholars are convinced with researches showing
that media influence on people’s thought is not direct or
constant. But Europeans are still skeptical about it.
• Michael Medved Holywood vs. America: Popular Culture
and the war on traditional values
• Roger Scruton An Intelligent Person’s guide to Modern
Culture
• The biggest harm of media to the society is today’s
concentration (ownership different and numerous media
companies concentrated in fewer and fewer hands) of
different media companies like Ropert Mudock News
corporation having 789 business in 52 countries.
Common Asssumptions of Mass
Society Theory
•
The media are a malignant, cancerous force within society and must be purged or totally
restructured. (1920s)
As a result in Europe broadcast media went under control of government. In USA, other social
institutions were involved in controlling media like churches, schools etc..
•
Media have the power to reach out directly influence the minds of average people. (1940s)
Average people were seesn helpless before the manipulative power of the media. Researches showed
that it was almost impossible to measure the disruptive effects of the media.
•
Once people’s minds are corrupted by media, all sorts of bad, long-term consequences
result creating social problems.
Every major social problems somehow was thought linked to media. Although some of them partly true
but mostly misleading. Today different than early period we believe that the media are the only
one of the social institutions.
•
Average people are vulnerable to media because they have been cut off and isolated from
traditional social institutions that previously protected them from manipulation.
Early thinkers were celebrating old social values in folk communities. But we know that there were
some restrictive aspects of old social order. Today audiences find media as friendly news source
of politics, entertainments etc. ‘should media be blamed for luring people away from folk
communities by offering more powerful forms of entertainment’ Or, were media simply providing
people with attractive content at a time when folk communities has lost their ability to control their
members?’ (Davis and Baran 52). Media do not dominate other institutions permanently except
some period like social instability.
Common Asssumptions of Mass
Society Theory
• The social chaos initiated by media will inevitably be resolved
by establishment of a totalitarian social institutions social
order. (1930-1950s)
A search for a totalitarian regime found followers among average
people through media. Some demagogues called people to join
extreme political movements like they did in Hitler period in
Germany. Today people who are in pluralists and democratic
regimes find this a nightmare since totalitarianism would end
individual freedoms.
• Mass media inevitably debase higher forms of culture, bringing
about a general decline in civilization.
Theorists critised the way of media’s popularizing things. Gangsters but
not political leaders, cartoons but not pictures. Why give people
what they want instead of what they need. In Europe this found
followers and government took the control of media as it had been in
Britain, BBC, Auntie Beebe.
The Great Debate between media theorists and
apologists studied by B. Berelson in the book
entitled Cultural Democracy (1961).
• According to Berelson participants of this debate
are
• -Practicus who are media industry apologists
• -Academicus who are mass media theorists
• -Empiricus who are mass communication
researchers using social science methods.
• Berelson says listen to Empiricus which later
become dominant paradigm.
Mass society theory
Strengts
• Speculates about important effects.
• Highlights important structural changes and conflicts in modern
cultures.
• Draws attention to issues of media ownership and ethics.
Weaknesses
• It is unscientific
• It is unsystematic
• It is promulgated by elites interested in preserving power
• Underestimates intelligence and competence of average people
• Underestimates personal, societal and cultural barriers to direct
media influence.