Week 2

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.