The Mass Media

Sociological Perspectives
 Mass Media defined
• Mass media is defined as
-interpersonal communications
directed to a vast audiences.
• Mass Media include-television,
radio, newspapers, the internet
Early Critics (Gomberg, 1964)

• According to (television
standardizes children’s minds
and stereotypes their
imaginations.
•  
 Urie Bronfrenbrennar
• Referrred to the television viewing
as, “The Unmaking of the
American child(1962)
 Mass=large clump
• The term- mass media, derives
from the term mass -large clump,
shapeless piece of matter…
 Mass Communications
• Media…media = middle
• Some (Chomsky, 1991) mass media:
• middling,
• leveling,
• compartmentalizing,
• channelling,
 Brief HISTORY of the News

• THE UNITED STATES

• &
• CANADA
 Early Democracy US
• Free Press dynamic=liberty..
• Independent News in every city and town

• The 1850 census catalogued 2,526

newspaper titles.
 The early US 20th century.

• An astounding 11,314
different papers were
recorded in the 1880
census.
 Radio and television

• By the 1960s Radio and Television

surpassed the Newspaper.

• By the 2000s Radio and TV were being

surpassed by the Internet.
 Media in Canada
• The Oldest Canadian Newpaper The
Halifax Gazette

• Currently six corporations control

Canadian media compared to over 100
owners in 1900.
 Timeline of To the Internet

1. 1939 First Television

2. 1945-War ends-domestic
production and consumerism
begins
3. 1957-Sputnik
 Timeline
4. 1960-ARPA. From military use
to University
5. 1980- Computer begin***
6. 1990’s WWW
7. 2000 –capitalism and
globalization.
 Selectivity of the News-
• Leftist -note that news coverage of ethnic
minorities is negative
1. -Unbalanced coverage

2. Street Crime vs Suite Crime

 Right Wing Media Critic..
• argue that news is too negative about the
economy

• i.e More people are working, output is

higher.
 Theoretical Perspectives on
Mass Media
1. Structural Functional –integration (the
town crier)
2. Conflict-ideology (bourgeois false
consciousness)
3. Symbolic Interactionist- (formal
rationality)
4. Post Modernism-(fragmented discourses)
 1. Functionalists-Mass media
• The mass media in a democratic nation
reflect varied opinions, it is fair and
neutral many groups are represented.

•  Media integrates human society, brings

groups together, contributes to collective
consciousness.
 Mass Media: A Functional
Social Institution
• Mass media-newspapers,
magazines, television, radio, the
internet, can be considered an
institution.
• One of society’s key agents of
socialization
 Mass Media and SF

• a.      Functionalists such as T. Parsons-

media plays a vital role in the integration,
adaptation society.
• The media gathers and disseminates
information (It is only the town crier).
 Mass Media and SF
• b.     It socializes us into the on-going
social order…It transmits cultural heritage,
and basic norms and values.
• c.      It provides pleasure and
entertainment-stress management (chill
out and watch the tube)
• d.      Reinforces shared ideals, justice,
democracy, respect for the law amidst
freedom and individualism
• e.     Provides social integration,
surveillance, reproduces a moral order
(Durkheim
 2 Conflict Theory on Media
• The media is an instrument of the
bourgeoisie.
• The wealthy and the powerful utilize
media to maintain the hegemonic
status in the social order.
• The Mass Media -disseminate
ideology
Box 5.1

The Number One

Global Media
Corporation

Chapter 5 Copyright © 2001 Harcourt Canada Ltd. Slide

10
 Ideology

• Conflict theorists define ideology

as a body of assumptions, ideas,
and values the combine into a
coherent world view.
 IDEOLOGY-
• COMES FROM THE TOP
DOWN…IDEAS OF THE
RULING CLASS.
• The bourgeoisie suffer from `false
consciousness’.
 Mass Media: CONFLICT
THEORY
• Few of us have actually sat down and
thought about ideas vs. ideology

• IDEOLOGY- ideas legitimated by the

RULING CLASS
 Legitimacy

 Legitimacy comes to us from

without in at least four
ways:
Conflict Theory – Mass Media
See Adorno
1. The media is a capitalist tool

2. The media is owned by the

dominant class
3. -Only a few corporations in
charge,
4. Television is an advertising
mechanism with splatters of news
and entertainment.
  

5. Media =mass deception

 
6. Media -legitimates the status
quo-
 False Consciousness

7. Disseminates a dominant
ideology that cultivates production
and consumption of
commodities…commodity
fetishism
   Media -mass deception
..
8.  Media for the most part is an
opiate –see Marx on religion
.
 Media +hegemony
• 9.      -Those on top are not
something to strive for…
• Achievement is an ideology.
• SEE LOTTERIES AS
IDEOLOGY
 Information technology
• 10. -IT distracts people /prevents
them from recognizing the
exploitive characteristics of
capitalism
 IDEAS OR IDEOLOGY?
• Far beyond serving as sources of
information, the media influence
our attitudes towards social
issues, other people, and even our
self concept.
 R.Connel (1989)
• Mass media constructs gender

• People identify with the stereotypes view

on TV and the Movies.
• For example, despite attention to
violence today,
• 40% of violent acts are committed
by Heroes.
1. Violence is normalized

2. Violence part of masculinity.

3. Femininity-passive, compliant.
• Hegemonic Masculinity
and
• Emphasized Femininity
 3. Symbolic Interactionism

• CW. Mills
• “The media not only give us
information; they guide our very
experience.
• .” –our standards, our credulity our
view of reality itself…
 Sociological Imagination
(C. Wright Mills 1959)
•  Sociological imagination helps us
grasp the relationship between
history and biography.
 Public influences private
• Through Mass media we can see

• how our personal lives are

connected to social world
• (micro-macro connection).
 SI and Conflict View
• See Herman and Chomski, Manufacturing
Consent.

• The mass media constructs social reality

 Symbolic Interactionism,
• Use of language, visual images, symbolic
tools-
• representation of reality is a selective
process-
• What is to be included and left out….
• Every representation is only one of
several ways of seeing and talking about
something.
Media &the political spectrum
• “From the point of view of those on
left-wing of the political spectrum, the
right wing media are:
• …Not merely influential or persuasive,
they are powerful!
 Political Right
• To those on the Political Right, such as
George Bush and even Lou Dobbs, a left
wing media,

• However small and tacky, however badly

mimeographed and coffee stained, carry
more weight than the New York Times.
 Crime in the News
• We here much about STREET CRIME-
crack dealer, prostitute, robbery at the
grocery store.
• Little about SUITE CRIME-white collar
crime is more destructive to society as a
whole.
 4. The Technological
Perpective
• SEE MARSHAL McLUHAN

• THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE

• (Theory-enhance, retrieve, reverse,
obsolesce)
 Technological change
• Mass media is driven by capitalism and
technological change-television for
example, was introduced in 1939…
• Now it consumes our lives….
 Electronic Media `is’ the
Message
• -Technological Approach
• THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE
• Medium=enhance, retrieve, reverse,
obsolesce
 Television
• Television, in particular, has become a
critical force in the socialization of
children.
• In 1999, survey in Canada, 99% of
households contained at least on TV,
75% at least on VCR, 75% cable. 
•  
 Technological change
• In the New millenium-cell phones, IPODS,
MP3,
• Global positioning systems-BIG
BROTHER…

• See Enemy of the State-Will Smith

 Social Change
• In 1979, Canadians spent 200 million on
movie rental and going to movies…
• Whereas in the 1990’s that figure jumps
800 million…
• W. F Ogburn (1933)-a change in material
culture, produces `cultural lag’-change in
non-material culture is slower.
• McLuhan-media messages are growing
increasing powerful and ubiquitous
 5. POST MODERNISM:
• .     Television and other media are a
discourse those in privileged positions:
• can limit the discourse of other,
• control the information flow,
• select content.
 4. POST MODERNISM:
• .     Television and other media are a discourse
those in privileged positions:
• can limit the discourse of other,
• control the information flow,
• select content.
• .

• .
 Bruce Hornsby and the Range
• Well they passed a law in 64
To give those who aint got a little more
But it only goes so far
Because the law anothers mind
When all it sees at the hiring time
Is the line on the color bar
 Television and Stereotypes

• a.    TV mirrors society’s patterns of inequality

• b.    TV rarely challenges the status quo…trailer
park boys
• c.     TV almost always places men in positions of
power
• d.     TV almost always depicts women as mothers
or subordinates
•