Mediation

Author(s): Gaston Roberge

Source: India International Centre Quarterly , JUNE 1983, Vol. 10, No. 2, MEDIA:
response and change (JUNE 1983), pp. 131-136
Published by: India International Centre

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23001638

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MEDIA AWARENESS

Mediation

Gaston Roberge

A
**FTER seeing Richard Attenborough's film Gandhi, spectators who
were unfamiliar with either India or Gandhi, were prompted to ask:
"Is the film true? Did things really happen that way?" These spec
tators knew, of course, that the Gandhi-film is not Gandhi, that a
movie purporting to describe a given reality is only a medium, thanks
to which that reality can be grasped to an extent. The medium is not
the thing, it is between the thing and the spectator. The medium
mediates, that is clear. What is perhaps not so obvious is that the
medium is not natural. The Gandhi-film, to use the same example,
does not lead to reality, but to a reality: Attenborough's Gandhi. Thus,
in this case the medium's mediation consists in at once veiling
Gandhi, and revealing a certain Gandhi. In this double action the
media fabricate what is held as reality in a society.

This point can be emphasized by a consideration of photography.

For most people photos are taken, as if images were waiting for a
cameraman to take them. In fact, you don't take, you make photos.
And the means which a cameraman has in order to make images out
of the elements in front of his camera are almost unlimited. Yet, a
photograph is considered an image of reality; as if there was a reality
standing somewhere beside the photographic image, and with which
that image could be compared. What we call reality is man-made. So
are the images of reality. A cherished illusion of contemporary man
is that reality exists independently of him; and consequently certain
images of reality are objective. In that view, the media mediate neutrally

131

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132 GASTON ROBERGE

between a purely objective reality and a purely subjective spectator.

But that is not the case. For, both the spectator and the media are,
inasmuch as they are known, integral parts of what is called reality.

Thus, two misconceptions have to be dispelled. The first is that

the media are just instruments in the hands of an agent who can use
them as he pleases. The other is that the media themselves are
agents, having all sorts of roles and responsibilities within society.
These two misconceptions are based on two aspects of the media:
the technological and institutional aspects. As technology, the media
are not neutral instruments. On the other hand, the media institutions
cannot be thought of as agents transcending their own milieux.

We might clarify the issue by saying that the world is made of

the totality of what exists; and reality is made of what man knows and
perceives. Thus, in himself man is part of the world; but as an object of
knowledge, he is part of someone else's reality. The media are means
of creating reality. Since man can never grasp the totality of the world,
what he grasps, with its limits and deformations, is for him reality. The
media make it possible for man to communicate, that is, to share his
reality with others. The process may be illustrated thus, using again
the Gandhi-film as an example:

World Reality

Gandhi

Spectator

Spectator's
Gandhi

Exists in itself Exists in man

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•'If humanity is to progress. Gandhi is inescapable,
vcd, thought and acted, inspired by the vision of humanity
evolving toward a work! of peace and harmony.
We may ignore him at our own risk."
—Martin Luther King, Jr.

GANDHI
Publicity Leaflet for
Attenborough's Gandhi
The Media fabricate what is
held as reality in a society.

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Discipline is a
young man s
ftoud^ looks. Wear it

&HAHAT 71XT<LI S _ - 1 MAW It OlSTBlgU'lfS

Sealdah Railway Station

Media are living parts of the
living social organism.
Credits: Salim Paul,
Chitrabani.

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 Calcutta Street
The Media as Environment:
Man is part of the
environment. The Media
influence man and man
influences the Media.
Credits: Salim Paul,
Chitrabani.

A West Bengal Village

The Media as Environment:
Man is part of the
environment. The Media
influence man and man
influences the Media.
Credits: George Ponodath,
Chitrabani.

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 Houu che Mafatlal Advertisement
world/ee/ you "AD UCATION" i

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 MEDIATION 133

In calling one of his books Understanding Media, Marshall McLuhan

had proposed a pun which still deserves to be pondered over today.
McLuhan's readers needed to be jolted out of their media environment
in orderto gain an understanding of that environment. What they were
made to understand, however, is that the media are nothing but means
of understanding the world. In order to understand world and the self,
man creates understanding media. But means to a goal always
determine the extent to and the manner in which the goal is to be
reached. For instance, whether you go places walking or by jet is not
indifferent. For, the place you reach is not the same, as far as you are
concerned, according to whether you reach it walking or flying.
Correlatively, if the place you are going to were a subject, he/she
would find you a different visitor—according to whether you arrived
walking or flying. When it comes to understanding one's media or to
reaching, for instance, complex goals like so-called historical facts,
the media used for understanding these facts necessarily lead to
different understandings according to whether the media involved are
pieces of writing, films, TV reports, etc; and, of course, according to
what persons use these media.

Another useful pun is that of media awareness. Educators have

realized that people need to gain an awareness of the media, that is,
an awareness of the omnipresence and all-embracing action of the
media in their society and in their personal lives. If the media truly are
our psychic environment, their mediation deserves as much attention
as the physical environment does. But once you start paying attention
to the media of communication, you soon realize that your awareness
of both the media and the world is largely dependent on the media
themselves. It is, in other words, mediated.

Thus, the phrase media awareness means at one and the same
time an awareness of or about the media, and an awareness derived
from or formed by the media. Contemporary man owes to the media
most of what he is aware of today. His awareness is a media aware
ness. Example: Some months ago occurred the War of the Falkland
Islands. It is likely that most people of the world know about that war.
Their awareness of that odd and anachronistic event is a media
awareness, a production of the media—a mediation. And since the
media are varied, people throughout the world have different types of
awareness of the war, according to the media that nurtured them.

People's daily conversations are consonant with the main topics

of their daily newspapers. The newspapers deal with current issues,
it is true. But why are some facts current issues while Other facts are

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 134 GASTON ROBERGE

not? The answer to this question is that the media are not a bundle of
things, but a complex network of institutions. The media are no
passive mirrors. They are living parts of the living social organism.
The media, somewhat like glands in the body, secrete the issues that
are deemed useful or necessary for the organism from the point of
view of these persons, within or without that social organism who
have the power to decide on such matters.

Earlier in this paper I wrote of the media as an environment. This

needs qualification. The distinction between man and environment is
logical only, which does not mean that it is unwarranted or useless.
The distinction is in fact necessary and meaningful, but it is not
absolute, and is valid only from a limited point of view. For man
cannot be totally separated from his environment. Man is part of the
environment. Similarly, you cannot separate man from his media
environment, for there is a reciprocal link of causality between them
both. Man influences the media; and the media influence man. It is not
possible to untie these links, and give to the one part an absolute
power of causality over the other part. This explains why some
questions which may appear pertinent have nonetheless no answers,
like "does TV violence cause people to be more violent?" or "what
are the effects of TV on your children?"

The mediation, action or function, of the media is an interplay of

systemic relationships between world, man and reality where you
cannot isolate an element and set it as the cause of the other elements.
All these elements are interlinked. It is doubtful that man has the
power to transcend this network of relationships, because man is
nothing but a particular set of these relationships. The life of the mind
is a constant acknowledgement that man's awareness is a media
awareness. Some may find this exercise futile. Others—like this
writer—find it exciting to try and explore the confines of the mind...
for these confines are infinite.

II

Given these premises, the idea of using the media to bring about
social change takes on added urgency. But the project calls for a
whole set of qualities and attitudes that are not often found amongst
administrators, planners, politicians and even successful social
workers. These qualities called for are compassion and patience, the
respect of men and women, non-violence in the implementation of
projects, honesty in assessing the cause of socio-economic problems;
and above all, humility —or if you wish, the simple absence of arro
gance. The change agent, is not concerned with problems, but with

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 MEDIATION 135

people. You don't handle people as you do problems. You don't handle
people at all. You relate with them, and you do so through media. You
do not use media: you relate through media.

Nonetheless the media of communication are being used—as

much as people, unfortunately, are being used. I can distinguish three
approaches in the use of media for social change. These approaches
are dominated by an instrumentalist notion of the media. The first
approach, charted by men like Wilbur Schramm, consisted in trying to
inject alien ideas into people's mind with the help of foreign com
munication media. That approach worked well for ad-ucation and
advertising campaigns; but rarely did it lead to desired social changes
expressed in terms of human development.

The second approach consists in appropriating popular media for

the dissemination of alien ideas. This was advocated by, amongst
others, the UNESCO experts. It was considered that there is no signi
ficant difference between mass and group media. It was only a matter
of injecting new ideas in the old media.

The third approach consists in penetrating people's media in

order to influence them from within, and cause people to adopt
ideas hitherto alien to them as if they were their own. These three
approaches have been attempted successively and now exist concur
rently. The inherent violence of the three approaches is obvious. Once
you decide unilaterally to bring about specific social changes, your
media approach is bound to be a violent one.

With the praiseworthy'view to producing tangible, qualifiable

results, the agents have nonetheless progressively despoiled the
masses of their rightful possessions—in favour of few recipients.
Whether you speak of farming (the Green Revolution), social forestry
or fisheries, you find that the overall economic situation of a country
has been improved—but within that country the situation of the poor
has worsened. And now the agents of change are about to take over
the last, most intimate, resource of the people: their manners of
communication, and through these, their very identity. Social change
experts have first talked of social marketing; and now, very coherently,
they speak of development advertising. If you can sell soap through
advertising can you not sell ideas? Yes, you can. But you can't sell
human, healthy, relationships. Communication is nothing but relation
ship—the media nothing but the nexus of these relationships.

We can think of a media as the particular organization of a set of

interpersonal relationships. Communication is the interplay of these

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136 GASTON ROBERGE

relationships, whereas the media structure that interplay. The media

tion of the media is their structuring action, the manner in which they
organize communication.

There is a big difference between a mass medium like radio and

a simple slide show in a class-room. The difference is obvious: the
technology and the number of people involved. Yet, as a mediation a
slide show and a radio programme can be similar. A teacher giving a
slide show, for instance, can reproduce in his class-room the most
negative qualities of a government-owned and operated radio broad
cast: uni-directional, non-dialogical, non-democratic, non-accessible,
non-participatory communication. What immediately affects the quality
of a communication process is its mediation, the structure of the
process itself. The technology and the number of persons involved
are not primary factors.

From a human point of view the goal of communication always is

communion. But that goal can be thwarted into one of domination.
There are mediations that favour communion, other mediations struc
ture interpersonal relationships into a net holding in psychic—when
not physical—captivity some of the participants in the communication
process. When your sole consideration is economic development, then
people are the problem. And for you Snoopy's irritated exclamation
sounds correct: "the problem is, people ain't no good!" But when your
primary consideration is human development, then people are the
resource. And Snoopy is wrong. But either way, mediation is your
first concern. You want economic change? Through skilful mediation
there must be some way for you to bring people to perform and
achieve set goals. You aim at human development? Then you must
first consider the quality of the mediations prevalent in the milieu,
and, above all the quality of the mediation you yourself foster. If the
media mediate oppressive human rapports then, these media can only
be parts of a strategy that is aimed at economic development for a
minority, not at human development for all.

It would seem to follow from what I have written, thus far in this
paper, that there is little scope for intervention in the field of media.
And yet, there must be intervention and there must be change. The
quality of that intervention and of that change will depend largely on
the media sense of the intervenant. It should be clear that as long as
the media appear as instruments capable of boosting the power of
self-styled or duly appointed change agents, we are heading in the
wrong direction. The right direction first implies that the media be
acknowledged as a focus of interpersonal relationships, which
determine the very quality of social life.

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