The Summer of 1998, The Truman Show, is the

story of a young man whose entire life, from the

moment he was born, has been televised. The
minute-by-minute chronicle of his daily existence
becomes the most popular television show of all
time, When Truman Burkbank discovers that he
is constantly viewed by millions of people
around the world, he tries to escape. He wants his
own life, he wants his privacy, he wants his
dignity. Who wouldn’t?

1
Twenty-one -year old Jennifer Ringley, for one, doesn’t
seem to share Truman’s values. Her JenniCam
broadcasts every moment of her life in her Washington
D.C. apartment to more than 500,000 viewers.
Audience members can see her sleep, play with her cat,
work at her computer, even change clothes. “Initially
the JenniCam had an audience of half a dozen of my
close friends, and it spread like wild fire from there,”
said JenniCam star.
The JennieCam is a site on the World Wide Web (http://
www.jennicam.org) not a movie, not a television
program. Yet regular viewers can pay an admission
price - like at the movies ($15 a year buys updated
video images of every three minutes; still photos are
free.) And audiences do sit in front of a screen to watch
pixilated, moving images - like television.
2
This convergence, the blurring of the distinction among
various forms of communication, is transforming the
mass media environment.
Ms.Ringley’s early use of the Web can be seen as
analogous to the telephone or home video. It was
designed to allow her to stay in touch with her friends.
But now it is more like film and television.
But as the media environment changes, so too do the
individuals and societies that use the media.
The relationship between Ms. Ringley and her friends
has been altered. The definition of “friend” has been
expanded.
People opt for this “real life” viewing at the expense of
other real life activities and forms of mediated
communications.
3
We are in the midst of a revolution in communication
technology that is transforming social orders and
cultures around the world.
Each new technological device expands the possible
uses of the existing technologies. New media can be
combined to create media systems that span great
distances but that can also serve as a broad range of
highly specific purposes.
In retrospect, we now regard this first century of mass
communication as one dominated by expensive, clumsy
technologies that provided a limited array of services to
gigantic audiences.
We were forced to accommodate our needs to what the
older media technologies could provide.

4
Highly centralized media systems were established and
controlled by large corporations located in the largest
cities.
For most of us, the term “mass media” still is
synonymous with the “big media.”
Now although we are caught up in a communications
revolution, much of our attention is still riveted on the
media dinosaurs.
We are now only beginning to understand the potential
of alternative media to serve the needs we didn’t know
we had. If this were not so, the Internet and the World
Wide Web would neither be as popular, nor as
controversial as they are.

5
The new media have largely expanded our options for
entertainment and information content.
Instead of choosing from a handful of movies at local
theaters or on three network television stations, we can
select from hundreds of titles available on cable
channels, videotapes, and video discs.
By exchanging copies of records, tapes, and discs with
friends, we can create large home music libraries.
At any given moment, we can tune to several different
news casts on television and radio.
Using personal computers, we can access remote data
bases and scan endless reams of information on diverse,
specialized topics.

6
We can use the internet’s interactive capabilities to
experiment with and create new identities.
An array of print media are available - many edited to
suit the tastes of relatively small audiences.
The old market place of ideas has become a gigantic
super market.
IF YOU WANT IT, YOU CAN GET IT
SOMEWHERE.

7
We will examine:
✴ how media scholars have conceptualized the role of
media during the past century.
✴ The purpose is to provide you with a broad and
historically grounded perspective on what media can
do for you and to you.
✴ we will review some of the best (and worst) thinking
concerning the role and potential of media.
✴ Look back to the origins of media and the early
efforts to understand their influence and role.
✴ Trace the challenge of new technology and the rise
of various media industries, focusing on the theories
that were developed to make sense of them.
✴ Finally, conclude with a review of current theory
and assist you in developing a personally relevant
perspective on media.
8
There are three issues or questions provoked by mass
media that have driven and continue to drive the
development of mass communication theory:
What potential is offered and what threats are
posed by new forms of media technology?
What forms of media bureaucracies or
industries should be create to control or
regulate media technologies so that their
potential is realized and their threats
minimized?
How can media serve democratic and culturally
pluralistic societies?

9
These issues have provoked ongoing debate and
controversy during the past century. Recently, the
Internet and the World Wide Web have inspired many
of the same controversies sparked in earlier eras by
penny press, dime novels, and nickel movies.
Cable television did the same, as did television before it
and radio before that.
The debates surrounding the Internet and Web -
protection of children from indecency, control of
offensive content, limits on hate speech, maintenance of
personal privacy, protection of copyright, the threat of
over commercialization, the impact on our democracy
of disparities in access to information and technology -
have all raged more than once before.
These controversies are not new. They recur routinely
in predictable fashion. 10
In every era, proponents of the new media technology
would argue that it had the potential to interconnect
people in powerful new ways, that technology could aid
the formation of new communities by bridging cultural
differences and dissolving barriers posed by space and
time.
Inevitably, media proponents were and are opposed by
critics who charge that new technologies are inherently
dangerous, that they will inevitably undermine the
existing social orders, and precipitate widespread unrest
and disorder.

11
New media proponents that the new technology can
expand each person’s cultural and experiential
horizons. They envision newly energized, active
audiences in which people find ways of making media
serve them so that their lives are more interesting and
purposeful.
Media opponents fear that average people will be
overwhelmed by new technologies, paralyzed by the
mesmerizing power of new media, and ultimately be
transformed into gigantic, passive audiences - a world
of couch potatoes and cyber addicts.
Proponents foresee the rise of a responsible citizenry
that uses new media to construct increasingly
democratic forms of government, but opponents see
the rise of demagogues whose power is based on the
cynical manipulation of the public.
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Proponents envision ideal social orders in which new
technology fosters cultural understanding so that people
practicing many different cultures can live in harmony.
Opponents argue that the same technology will sharpen
and deepen cultural stereo types and spread fears about
other cultures. Thus, instead of creating harmony, new
media will incite conflict or even open warfare.
Within academia, many scholarly communities
developed to investigate the role of media.Sometimes
these scholars worked in close association with either
proponents or opponents of the media.
Funding for their work came from groups, foundations,
or corporations that lauded or feared media.

13
If we have learned anything about the media over the
past century, it is that media are not demonic forces that
inevitably precipitate societal or personal disasters.

Media alone don’t create couch potatoes and cyber

addicts, or foster massive political demonstrations.

But neither are they benign agents of a New Order

ushering in the new Age of Enlightenment.

People using media have the power to create either

division or community.

14
Media technology alone is powerless to initiate useful
change.
But technology can augment and amplify the actions of
individuals and groups and in doing so facilitate rapid
and widespread social change on an important scale.

Media technology does have certain inherent biases - it

amplifies and encourages someways of understanding
the social world and some forms of action more than
others.

15
Rather than simply provoking fear or inspiring
optimism, media theory should serve as a tool that
guides our understanding and use of new technology.

Media theory should enable us to shape media

industries that serve our needs and minimize unplanned
disruption to our personal lives and the society around
us.

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Defining and Redefining Mass Communication

Definition: When an organization employs a

technology as a medium to communicate with a
large audience, mass communication is said to
have occurred.
e.g: The professionals at ‘The Times of India’(an
organization) use printing presses and the
newspaper (technology and medium) to reach to
their readers ( a large audience)

17
But, the mass communication environment is changing.
When you receive a piece of direct mail advertising
addressed by name to you, at which your name is used
throughout, you are an audience of one - not the large
audience envisioned in traditional notions of mass
communication.
When you sit at your computer and send an email to
20,000 people who have signed on to a LISTSERV
dedicated to a particular subject, you are obviously
communicating with a large audience, but you are not
an organization in the sense of a newspaper, cable
television network, or movie studio.
Light weight, portable, inexpensive video equipment
makes it possible for an individual like you to
profitably produce and distribute videos to quite a
small number of viewers. 18
Most theories we will study were developed before the
modern communitions revolution. This does not render
them useless or outmoded, but it does require that we
remember that much has changed in how people use
technologies to communicate.
One useful way to do this is to think of mediated
communication as existing on a continuum that
stretches from interpersonal communication at one end
of the traditional forms of mass communication at the
other.
Different media fall along this continuum depending on
the amount of control and involvement that people have
in the communication process.

19
e.g.: The telephone, it is obviously a communication
techology, but one that is most typical of interpersonal
communication - at most very few people can be
involved in communicating at any given time and they
have a great deal of involvement and control over that
communication. - the conversation is theirs, they
determine its content.
A big budget Hollywood movie or a network television
telecast of the “Roadies” or “F.R.I.E.N.D.S” or “IPL”
sits at the opposite end.
Viewers have limited control over the communication

20
that occurs.
Certainly people can apply idiosyncratic interpretations
to the content before them, and they can choose to direct
however much attention they wish to the screen, but
their control and involvement over the communication is
largely limited to attending or not or viewing or not.

21
 FOUR ERAS OF MEDIA THEORY

The era of mass society theory

The emergence of a scientific perspective on
mass communications
The era of limited effects
and The era of cultural criticism.

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 THE ERA OF MASS SOCIETY AND MASS
CULTURE
This mass communication theory begins with a review
of some of the earliest notions about media.

These ideas were initially developed in the latter half of

the nienteenth century as new media technologies were
invented and popularized.Although some theorists were
optimistic about the new technology, most were
extremely pessimistic.

They blamed new industrial technology for disrupting

reaceful, rural communities and forcing people to live in
urban areas merely to serve as a convenient work force
in large factories, mines, or bureaucracies.
23
These theorists were fearful of cities because of their
crime, cultural diversity, and unstable systems.

Most theorists were educated members of dominant

elites who feared what they couldn’t understand.

The old social order based on landed aristocracy was

crumbling and so was its culture and politics.

Were Media responsible for this, or did they simply

accelerate these changes?

The dominant perspective that emerged during this

period is referred to as MASS SOCIETY THEORY.

24
Interpreting mass society notions is difficult because
they come from both ends of the political spectrum.

These notions were developed by monarchists who

wanted to maintain the old political order and by
revolutionaries who wanted to impose radical changes.

Media industries, such as penny press, were a

convenient target for their criticisms.

The essential argument of mass society theory is that

media undermine the traditional social order. To cope
with this disruption, steps must be taken to either
restore the old order or institute a new one.

25
This conflict often pitted a landed aristocracy whose
power was based on tradition against urban elites
whose power was based on the industrial revolution.

In time, the leaders of the industrial revolution gained

enormous influence over social change.

They strongly favored all forms of technological

development, including mass media.

In their view, technology, was inherently good since it

facilitated control over the physical environment,
expanded human productivity, and generated new forms
of material wealth.
26
New technology would bring an end to social problems
and lead to development of an ideal social world.

But in the short-term, industrialization brought with it

enormous problems - exploitation of workers, pollution,
and social unrest.

Mass society notions greatly exaggerated the ability of

media to quickly undermine social order. These ideas
failed to consider that media’s power ultimately resides
in the freely chosen uses that audiences make of it.

27
Mass society thinkers were unduly paternalistic and
elitist in their criticism of average people and in their
fear that media’s corruption of these masses would
inevitably bring social and cultural ruin.

But technology advocates were also misguided and

failed to acknowledge the many unnecessary, damaging
consequences that resulted from applying technology
without adequate consideration for its impact.

28
 EMERGENCE OF A SCIENTIFIC
PERSPECTIVE ON MASS COMMUNICATION

During the 1930s, world events seemed to

continually confirm the truth of mass ideas. In
Europe, reactionary and revolutionary political
movements used media in their struggles for
political power.

German introduced propaganda techniques that

ruthlessly exploited the power of new media
technology, like motion pictures and radio.

These practices seemed to permit political leaders

to easily manipulate public attitudes and beliefs.
29
All those across Europe, totalitarian leaders like Hitler,
Stalin and Mussolini rose to political power and were
able to exercise seemingly total control over vast
populations.

Private ownership of media, especially broadcast media,

was replaced by direct government control in most
European nations.

The explicit purpose for all these efforts was to

maximize the usefulness of media in the service of the
society.

But the unintended outcome in most cases was to place

enormous power in the hands of ruthless leaders who
were convinced that they personally embodied what
was best for all their citizens.
30
An important exception occurred in Great Britain where
and independent public corporation, the British
Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), was established to
operate broadcast media.

At the very peak of their popularity, mass society

notions came under attack from a most unlikely source
- an Austrian immigrant trained in psychological
measurement who fled Nazi Germany on a Ford
Foundation fellowship. That immigrant was Paul
Lazarsfeld, and for the field of mass communication
research he proved to be the right person in the right
place at the right time.
Within a few years after arriving in the United States,
he had established a very active and successful social
research centre, the Bureau for Applied Social Research
at Columbia University.
31
Though quite familiar and very sympathetic to mass
society notions, Lazarsfeld was above all a scientist.

He argued that it wasn’t enough to merely speculate

about the influence of media on society. Instead, he
proposed to conduct carefully designed, elaborate field
experiments in which he would be able to observe
media influence and measure its magnitude. It was
enough to assume that political propaganda is powerful
- you needed hard evidence to prove the existence of
such effects.

His most famous efforts, the Voter Studies, actually

began as an attempt to demonstrate the media’s power,
yet proved at least to him and his colleagues, just the
opposite.
32
By the early 1950s, Lazarsfeld’s work had generated an
enormous amount of data (by pre-computer standards).

Interpretation of this data led him to conclude that

media were not nearly as powerful as previously
imagined.

Instead, he found that people had numerous was of

resisting media influence and were influenced by many
competing factors. Rather than serving as a disruptive
social force, media seemed to reinforce existing social
trends and strengthen rather than threaten the status
quo.

Though Lazarsfeld never labeled his theory, it is now

referred to as the limited effects perspective. 33
• Today, the limited effects perspective encompasses
numerous smaller media theories.
• Many of these theories are widely used in guiding
research even though their shortcomings are
recognized.
• They are especially useful in explaining short-term
influence of routine media usage by various types of
audiences.
• Several of these theories are referred to as
administrative theories because they are used to
guide practical decisions for various organizations.
e.g.: these theories can guide television advertisers
as they develop and evaluate campaign strategies to
boost sales.

34
 THE LIMITED EFFECTS PARADIGM EMERGES

During the 1950s limited effects notions about media

continued to gain acceptance within academia.
Several important clashes occurred between its
adherents and those who supported mass society
ideas (Bauer & Bauer,1960)
In 1960, several classic studies of media effects
( Campbell, Converse, Miller, & Stokes,1960;
Deutschmann & Danielson, 1960; Klapper, 1960)
were published that provided apparently definitive
support for the limited effects notions.

35
 By 1961, V.O.Key had published Public Opinion
and American Democracy, a theoretical and
methodological tour de force that integrated limited
effects notions with social and political theory to
create a perspective that is now known as elite
pluralism.
Advocates of mass society notions came under
increasing attack as “unscientific” or “irrational”
because they questioned “hard scientific findings.”
They were further discredited within academia
because they became associated with the anti-
Communist Red Scare promoted by Senator Joseph
Mc Carthy.

36
• By the mid-1960s, the debate between mass society
and limited effects notions appeared to be over - at
least within the mass communication research
community.
• The body of empirical research findings continued
to grow, and almost all these findings were
consistent with the latter view. Little or no empirical
research supported mass society theory.
• This was not surprising since most empirical
researchers trained at this time were warned against
its fallacies.
e.g: in the 1960s, a time of growing concern about the
violence in the United States and the dissolution of
respect for the authority, researchers and theorists
from psychology not mass communication, were most
active and prominent in examining television’s
contribution to these societal ills.
37
Many communication scientists stopped looking for
powerful media effects and concentrated instead on
documenting modest limited effects.

In a controversial essay, Bernard Berelson, one of the

people who worked closely with Paul Lazarsfeld,
declared the field of communication to be dead.
( Berelson 1959)

He wrote and essay just before the field of media

research underwent explosive growth. Throughout the
late 1960s and the 1970s, students flooded into
journalism schools and communication departments.
As these grew, so did their faculty. As the number if
faculty increased, so did the volume of research.

But was there anything left to study?

38
 CULTURAL CRITICISM: A CHALLENGE TO THE
LIMITED EFFECTS PARADIGM

Though most mass communication researchers in the

United States found limited effects notions and the
empirical research findings on which they were based
persuasive, researchers in other parts of the world were
less convinced.

Mass society notions continued to flourish in Europe

where both left-wing and right-wing concerns about the
power of media were deeply rooted in World War II
experiences with propaganda.

39
Europeans were also skeptical about the power of
scientific, quantitative social research methods to
verify and develop social theory. These methods were
widely viewed as distinctly American fetish.

One group of European social theorists who

vehemently resisted post-war U.S. influence are the
neomarxists. (Hall,1982) neomarxism: Social theorists
asserting that media enable dominant social elites to
maintain their power.

Media provide the elite with a convenient, subtle, yet

highly effective means of promoting world views
favorable to their interests.

Within neomarxist theory, efforts to examine media

institutions and interpret media content came to have
high priority. 40
During the 1960s, neomarxists in Britain developed a
school of social theory widely referred to as British
Cultural Studies.

It focused heavily on mass media and their role on

promoting a hegemonic world view and a dominant
culture among various subgroups in the society.

Researchers studied how member of these groups used

media and demonstrated how this use led people to
develop ideas that supported dominant elites.

Although British cultural studies began with

deterministic assumptions about the influence of media
(that is, the media have powerful, direct effects), their
work came to focus on audience reception studies that
41
revived important questions about the potential power of media
in certain types of situations and the ability of active audience
members to resist media influence - questions that 1960s
American media scholars ignored because they were skeptical
about the power of media and assumed that audiences were
passive.

During the 1970s, questions about the possibility of powerful

media effects were again raised within U.S. universities.

This cultural criticism,although initially greeted with

considerable skepticism by “mainstream” effects researchers,
gradually established itself as credible and valuable alternative
to minimal effects notions.

42
 EFFECTS RESEARCHERS STRIKE BACK: EMERGENCE
OF MODERATE EFFECTS.

Communication Science: A perspective on research that

integrates all research approaches grounded in quantitative,
empirical, behavorial research methods.

At the heart of these perspective are notions about active

audience that uses content to create meaningful experiences
(Bryant & Street,1988).

The moderat effects perspective acknowledges that important

media effects can occur over longer periods of time as a direct
consequence of viewer or reader intent.

People can make media serve certain purposes, such as using

media to learn information and induce meaningful experiences.
43
have unpredictable consequences.

The perspective implies that future research should focus on

people’s success or failure in their efforts to make meaning using
media.

Both intended and unintended consequences of media should be

studied.
The limited effects perspective was unable to understand or make
predictions about media’s role in cultural change. By flatly
rejecting the possibility that media can play an important role in
such change theorists were unable to make sense of striking
instances where the power media appears to be obvious.

for example: limited effects theorists are forced to deny that media
could have played a significant role in the Civil Rights, Anti-
Vietnam-War, Women’s & the 1960s counter-culture movements.

44
Yet leaders of these movements made significant use of the media,
both to recruit and communicate with members and as a vehicle to
express their views to the public.

One possible cause of the limited effects perspective’s failure to

account for these obvious examples of large-scale media influence
rests in the notion of levels of analysis.

Levels of analysis: The focus of a researcher’s attention, ranging

from individuals to social systems.

Social research problems can be studied at a number of levels, from

the macroscopic to the microscopic.

Microscopic Theory: Attempts to explain effects at personal or

individual level.
45
Macroscopic Theory: Attempts to explain effects at the cultural or
societal level.

The Limited Effects Researchers tended to focus their attention on

the microscopic level, especially on individuals from whom they
could easily and efficiently collect data. When they had difficulty
consistently demonstrating effects at micro level, they tended to
dismiss the possibility of effects at the cultural, or macroscopic
level.

for example: the limited effects perspective denied that

advertising imagery could cause significant cultural changes.
Instead, it argued that advertising merely reinforces existing socil
trends. At best (or worst), advertisers or politicians merely take
advantage of these trends to serve their purposes.
46
Moderate effects theorists developed reinforcement notions into a
broader theory that identifies important new categories of media
influence.

These theorists argue that at any point in time, there will be many
conflicting or opposing social trends.

From among the trends that can be easily reinforced by existing

marketing techniques, advertisers and political consultants are free
to base their promotional communication on those that are likely to
best serve their short - term self interests rather than the long-term
public good.

Saturday morning cartoons that promote the sale of sugared cereals

might just as effectively encourage child viewers to consume
healthier food.
47