‘Mass society’ and the belief in
powerful media
Development of mass media
• The first major mass medium was the
printing press
Helped to usher in the Renaissance
– First texts were religious, including a large
number of Bibles
– Moved on to classic books
– Then came pamphlets, including propaganda
– Censorship
Effects of the printing press
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•
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Increased literacy
Broadened worldview
Challenge to religious authority
Protestant Reformation
Loss of memory
Photography
Industrial revolution
• The most rapid and wrenching social revolution in
history
• Began in England in the latter part of the 18th
century and spread to the Continent and the United
States
Development of manufacturing
• Manufacturing went from a secondary economic
practice to dominance of the economy
– The scale of production rose till vast factories
employed huge numbers of workers
• Child labor
– New social classes developed
• Proletariat and bourgeoisie
• Industrial conflict and violence
Printing technology advances
– New presses eventually led to vastly reduced prices for
newspapers, periodicals, etc.
• Huge circulations
• ‘lower classes’ could afford printed materials
– Production of materials appealing to less refined tastes and
concerns
Print media
• Books
• Newsletters
• Newspapers
– Penny press
• Magazines/journals
– Many religious journals in mid-1800s
– Mass market magazines
• Ladies’ Home Journal tops 1 million circulation
Urbanization
• America went from being a rural nation to a
highly concentrated urban nation
– Concentration of the population within a short distance
of factories
• Factories in cities
– Immigrants to US concentrated in cities in the North
and Midwest
• Ghettos
– Social problems endemic to cities
• Drugs, prostitution, crime, alcoholism, gambling
1820
Pop. 15
Chicago’s growth
1854
pop. 55,000
1898
pop. 1,698,575
Social class
• Emergence of an entrepreneurial
(bourgeois) class
– Attainment of massive wealth
– Nouveau riche
– Conflict with aristocracy (especially in Europe)
Immigration
• Growing tide in latter 19th century to peak
in early 20th
• Immigration flow to the eastern U.S.
gradually changed from Britain to northern
Europe to eastern and southern
• West coast Chinese immigrants, then
Japanese
Transportation
– Steamships
– Railroads
• Promontory Point
• End of the “frontier”
– Development of automobiles
– Airplanes
Development of the nation state
Germany, Italy
Large-scale and regular warfare
Early formulation of social
theory
• Development of political economy and
sociology in the 18th &19th centuries
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Adam Smith
Karl Marx
August Comte
Gustave LeBon
Emile Durkheim
Charles Peirce
William Graham Sumner
Various social theories called upon to explain
problems and to provide solutions
Nature versus nurture a crucial
determinant
Adam Smith
Karl Marx
August Comte: Society as organism
Darwin’s theory of evolution was a
powerful influence over social theory at
the time
Herbert Spencer and Francis Galton:
“Social Darwinism”
John Locke—Tabula rasa
Community:
Ferdinand Tonnies and Emile Durkheim
Ferdinand Tonnies
• Gemeinschaft (translated “community”) and
Gesellschaft (translated “society”)
• Gemeinschaft is a form of association
where affective relations rule, where
consensus and shared belief are the norm
and where life is ordered, a person’s place is
largely given, and the person knows and
accepts the rules. (family, community,
friendship)
Ferdinand Tonnies
• Gesellschaft is a form of association where
rational self-interest rules, where the
individual has multiple and conflicting roles
and where affect is limited. (business,
political relations, instrumental
associations)
• Modern society had seen a shift from
gemeinschaft toward gesellschaft
Emile Durkheim
• Mechanical v. Organic solidarity
• Mechanical solidarity a feature of
traditional community--overarching
consensus on norms, mores, ideology bind
individuals to there place in society and
generate conformity that makes society
workable
Emile Durkheim
• Organic solidarity--society held together by
interactions among individuals and groups
that act according to their own interests,
rationally
– bonds are weak and conflict part of the
expected set of consequences, but society
adaptable and individual experiences greater
freedom
Mass society theory
• The combination of these factors led to the
development of ‘mass society’
– Breakdown of traditional communal life and
movement into cities where people of vastly
different backgrounds are thrown together
Gustave LeBon: The Crowd
LeBon’s description of the implications
of the development of mass society
• Social differentiation rises from:
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The division of labor
Bureaucratization
Mixing of diverse population groups
Differential consumption patterns
• Erosion of informal social control
– Decline of traditional norms and values
– Increase in deviant behavior
• Formal social control
– Contracts, laws, criminal justice systems
– Response to impersonal society
• Social conflict arises
– Juxtaposition of people with different values, goals and
lifestyles
• Communication faces a more difficult task, but
must play a more important role because of:
– Social differentiation
– Anomie, alienation, and distrust
– Breakdown in strength and depth of social ties
So, three major concerns:
1. Social dissolution and the breakdown
of consensus
2. Moral degeneration
3. Intervention into the natural processes
of social evolution
The development of
telecommunications
• Telegraph
• Phonograph
– Edison
• Telephones
– Bell
• Movies
– Lumiere brothers, Edison, others
• Radio
– Commercial radio during 1920s and
after
Generally speaking,
• Each new communication technology
brings a new set of concerns
• Also has a set of overly optimistic
proponents
• Actual use of technologies is largely
dependent upon audience acceptance and
innovative imagination
Edison Kinetoscope ca.1894
Projecting Kinetoscope
The nickelodeon
The Great Train Robbery, 1903
The Birth of a Nation (1915)
Propaganda
• Widespread use in World War 1
• Unprecedented access through mass media
• Apparent effectiveness
– Self-promotional statements of PR practitioners
• Fear of mass democracy, demagoguery
The Committee for Public
Information
• Unprecedented effort to sell the World War
to Americans
– Woodrow Wilson re-elected on the platform
“He kept us out of war”
– Wanted to mobilize Americans to enter war—
did enter war shortly after election
• A great deal of resistance to U.S. involvement
– Hired George Creel to head up CPI and
generate support for U.S. entrance into the war
Committee for Public
Information
• Massive mobilization of thousands of men
and women
• Drew heavily upon the expertise of new
professions of advertising and public
relations
• Stunningly successful—war fever to the
point of persecution of Americans of
German descent, crushing of domestic
opposition
After the war
• Members of the Committee boasted about
their success and the power of the media
and of promotional techniques to move the
masses
• Edward L. Bernays, nephew of Sigmund
Freud, wrote a couple of especially famous
(and scary) books about the CPI and about
opinion control in a democracy
Propaganda (1928)
•
Bernays argued that the manipulation of public opinion was a necessary part of
democracy:
– The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and
opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society.
Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an
invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. ...We
are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas
suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result
of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of
human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as
a smoothly functioning society. ...In almost every act of our daily lives,
whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our
ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of
persons...who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the
masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.
Walter Lippmann
• Journalist and editorialist that wrote about
the role of the newspaper in public affairs.
He reviewed the coverage of the First
World War and concluded that it was biased
and inaccurate. He felt that newspaper
coverage was insufficient to educate the
public on political affairs.
Chicago School concerns
• Fear over loss of “community”
– consensual forms of social control no longer
working
– rise of vice, demagoguery, mass movements
– crowd-like, mindless behavior
• Concern over viability of democracy in
industrialized, mass society
• How to reinvent the social conditions of the
small town within an industrialized society?
– no going back to an earlier age
Harold Lasswell
Propaganda in the World War
Lasswell’s propaganda studies
• Lasswell studied the techniques of
propaganda during the First World War. He
based his views of its effectiveness on the
use of techniques that he thought applied
Freudian principles
– Didn’t really review audience reactions
Payne Fund Studies: The effects
of movies on children
• Conducted in the late 1920's and early
30's
– this series of studies occurred in two
categories:
• 1. assess content of films and audience size
and composition (Dale)
Father Charles Coughlin
Kate Smith raised over $100 million in a single bond drive
Payne Fund Studies: The effects
of movies on children
Conducted in the late 20's and early 30's
– this series of studies occurred in two categories:
• 1. assess content of films and audience size and composition
(Dale)
• 2. audience effects of themes and messages
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a. acquisition of information (Holaday and Stoddard)
b. attitude change (R.C. Peterson and Thurstone)
c. stimulating emotions (Dysinger and Ruckmick)
d. harming health (Renshaw, Miller and Marquis)
e. eroding moral standards (C.C. Peters)
f. influencing conduct (Shuttleworth and May, Blumer and Hauser)
– theory-media have both harmful and prosocial effects
– advanced quantitative methodology
War of the Worlds
• An accidental occurrence seemed to
validate some of the worst fears about mass
society and the power of the newest mass
medium, the radio
• Orson Welles’ Mercury Theater of the Air’s
broadcast of an adaptation of H.G. Wells’
War of the Worlds on Halloween eve, 1938
Research on the broadcast
• The invasion from Mars: A study in the
psychology of panic (1940: Princeton
University)
– Cantril, Gaudet, Herzog
Two questions (p. 67)
• Why did this broadcast frighten some
people when other fantastic broadcasts do
not?
• Why did this broadcast frighten some
people but not others?
• Note: “Even this broadcast did not affect
more than a small minority of listeners.”
Why were people frightened?
• Realism of the program
– “sheer dramatic excellence” of the program
– early parts of the broadcast “fell within the
existing standards of judgment of the listeners”
– “If a stimulus fits into the area of interpretation
covered by a standard of judgment and does not
contradict it, then it is likely to be believed.”
Standards
• “Radio as accepted vehicle for important
announcements.”
• “Prestige of speakers.”
– astronomers
– military men
– Secretary of the Interior
• “Specific incidents understood.”
– colloquial English/bureaucratese
– real places, buildings, highways
Standards
• “Everybody baffled.”
– on-air personalities claim bewilderment
• “The total experience.”
– projected environment
– “experienced as a unit”
• individual features of broadcast not adequate to
explain reaction
Tuning in late
• CBS survey found that 42% of audience
tuned in late
– after intro
– strong relationship to belief that broadcast was
news report rather than play
• “Contagion the excitement created”
– Someone suggested respondent tune in after
show had begun [21% in AIPO survey; 19% in
CBS survey]
Effect of late tune-in
80
70
60
50
40
News
Play
30
20
10
0
From the beginning
(n=269)
After beginning
(n=191)
Not paying attention to first
announcements
• “widespread habit”
– station IDs and advertising
• accounted for about 10% of those who
misinterpreted the broadcast
– actual n quite small (10% of 54 people who
thought it was news reports)
Not paying attention to first
announcements
• most were casually scanning for something
to listen to--not looking for Mercury
Theater
• Competing with Charlie McCarthy
– vastly more popular than Mercury Theater
• (34.7 to 3.6)
– 18% of McCarthy listeners said they heard
WOW, of which 62% said they changed after
the first act (“Eddie Cantor effect”)
Classifying listeners
• Researchers developed the following
classification scheme for ‘suggestibility’:
1. Those who analyzed the internal evidence of
the program and knew it could not be true.
2. Those who checked up successfully to learn
that it was a play.
3. Those who checked up unsuccessfully and
continued to believe it was a news broadcast.
4. Those who made no attempt to check the
authenticity of the broadcast.
Checked internal evidence
• Did not remain frightened
• Listeners relied on “specific information they
possessed and were able to project into the
situation”
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–
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knew it was Mercury Theater
recognized Orson Welles
knew that time changes were too fast
knew that there weren’t three regiments of infantry in
the area
– just recognized the events as too fantastic
Successfully checked the broadcast
against other information
• Checked other stations (most common)
– “I turned to WOR to see if they had the same thing on and they
didn’t so I knew it must be a fake.”
• Looked up program in newspaper
– “I tuned in and heard that the meteor had fallen. Then when they
talked about monsters, I thought something was the matter. So I
looked in the newspaper to see what program was supposed to be
on and discovered it was only a play.
• Asked friend, looked out window
– (1 respondent each)
Unsuccessfully checked broadcast
against other information
• “Difficult to determine from interviews why
these people wanted to check anyway”
– seemed to be checking whether they were in
personal danger yet rather than whether reports
were authentic
• Type of checking behavior was “singularly
ineffective and unreliable”
Unsuccessful checks
• Methods
– Look out window or go outdoors (employed by
2/3 of this group)
– Called friends or ran to consult neighbors
– Telephoned police or newspapers
– “Only one turned his radio dial. Only one
consulted a newspaper.”
Reasons checks were
unsuccessful
• New information only verified their
interpretation
– “I looked out of the window and everything
looked the same as usual so I thought it hadn’t
reached our section yet.”
– “I went outside to look at the stars. I saw a
clear sky but somehow was not reassured.”
Reasons checks were
unsuccessful
• Observed data were interpreted as
additional evidence that the broadcast was
true
– “We looked out of the window and Wyoming
Avenue was black with cars. People were
rushing away, I figured.”
– “We tuned in to another station and heard some
church music. I was sure a lot of people were
worshiping God while waiting for their death.”
• “I looked out of my window and saw a
greenish-eerie light which I was sure came
from a monster. Later on it proved to be the
lights in the maid’s car.”
• Others felt unable to trust their own
observation, believing others knew more
about the situation than they did.
– Trusted the announcer on the radio as a source
– “My son came home during the excitement and
I sent him out to find one of the elders in the
church to see what it was all about.”
Made no attempt to check
the broadcast
• “Over half of the people in this group were
so frightened that they either stopped
listening, ran around in a frenzy or
exhibited behavior that can only be
described as paralyzed.”
Reasons for not checking
• So frightened they never thought of
checking
– “We didn’t try to do anything to see if it were
really true. I guess we were too frightened.”
• Adopted an attitude of complete resignation
– “I didn’t do anything. I just kept listening. I
thought if this is the real thing you only die
once--why get excited?”
Reasons for not checking
• Some felt they needed to take action. They
prepared immediately for escape or death.
– “My husband said we were here for God’s
glory and honor and it was for Him to decide
when we should die. We should prepare
ourselves.”
– “I couldn’t stand it so I turned it off. I don’t
remember when, but everything was coming
closer. My husband wanted to put it back on
but I told him we’d better do something instead
of just listen, so we started to pack.
Some remained constantly tuned
in to see how to escape