Updated:  09 October, 2003

Additional Resources: 

Primary Resources for this lecture:  Ball-Rokeach and Defluer, Baran and Davis.

The purpose of this discussion is to see how these theories work together to form a perspective on which modern mass com theories are formed.

One of the earliest general theories of media influence or effects is the MASS SOCIETY theory.  It is not the last.  People from various parts of the culture have examined the role of media in the society and the effects they have.  Bernard Berelson identified three key groups or perspectives of interest, evaluation and criticism of modern media who have debated the issues for more than 70 years.  Those three groups are:

• Academicus:  The mass society theorists who argued from a position based in cultural norms, ideals, and values. Seen as biased toward "the way we were"...  (saw "many effects")

• Practicus:     Those people IN the media who defended media.  Their concerns were practical and business/industry-related.  Perceived as biased toward "what's good for business."  (saw "few if any effects")

• Empiricus:    Social Scientists studying mass communication and using empirical research methodologies.  Perceived by Berelson (at least) as completely neutral because pure science had no bias. (saw "limited effects')

Empiricus, didn't make either other group happy, so they pretty much ignored media research unless it served their purpose, which wasn't very often.  While those groups and their perspectives still exist, they have been refined somewhat since 1961.

We'll first examine the sociological theories and then the psychological ones.  It is important to remember that effects theory did not emerge in any organized way.  Rather, it's development was (and to some degree still is) chaotic. 

The Sociological Beginnings.....

1.  August Comte:

Comte did his work in the 1830s and 1840s. Remember that his work was done before the industrial revolution, so he was working with rural cultures and relatively small towns and cities.  The nature of the society in which he lived, clearly affected the theory he developed. 

• He believed that society functioned much like an organism. 

  • different parts have different tasks to do

  • all contribute to the well-being of the whole

  • even negative aspects meet needs that might ultimately improve or contribute to the society

• He believed that societies go through an "evolutionary process"

  • societies could not remain static, they always change

  • parts of the society become more specialized as the society changes

• The natural process of growth of specialization is problematic because

  • people become some diversified that they have a hard time understanding each other

  • have harder time communicating

  • that makes it harder to maintain the unity in the society

• Specialization could become so extreme that is could cause severe problems which could rip the society apart.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

• Do you remember an episode of Fresh Prince of Bel Air in which Carlton wanted to pledge an African American fraternity but was not given a bid because fraternity members didn't think he was "black" enough.   How does that episode and the issue of "multiculturalism" illustrate Comte's Organic Theory?

• How might Comte's organic theory apply to the current situation in electronic media in which instead of 3 channels we now have 500 and multiple types of delivery systems?

2.    Herbert Spencer's Organic Analogy:

Spencer did his work later in the 1800s, after the industrial revolution and its effects were well under way.  Spencer is considered one of the founding founders of modern sociology.

• He also believed that society functioned like an organism

• He wrote Laws of Evolution in Principles of Sociology in 1863 which formed the basis of his ideas

• Believed that division of labor was a natural process and should not be inhibited in any way

  • opposed government intervention

  • didn't see problems with over-specialization

• Had a totally laissez-faire position because he believed that any intervention would disrupt the natural order of things.

DISCUSSION:  How would this perspective apply to broadcast regulation? 

• Such things as government limitations on the number of stations a single company can own? Network ownership regulations?

• Programming:  no indecency or obscenity limitations, no mandated children's programs; no warnings about sex or violence on television, let the public decide....

• Public Interest Convenience and Necessity: Key justifying phrase in Com Act of 1934 and basis of broadcast regulation reflecting the TRUSTEESHIP MODEL of regulation vs. MARKETPLACE MODEL of regulation which see television no more than a "toaster with pictures"

3.    Ferdinand Tonnie and the THEORY OF SOCIAL BONDS:

Tonnie contrasted the simple agrarian societies with the post-industrial revolution societies.  He saw cultures in two key forms:

Gemeinschaft societies:

• A Gemeinschaft society is one based on strong reciprocal ties among members of a group which binds them to that group.

• "Strong community" and more

  • bonds of family

  • bonds of village or tight community

  • bonds of religious beliefs

  • bonds of tradition

• modern examples:

  • fraternity or sorority

  • church

  • school

  • family

• These bonds are based on mutual respect for, understanding of, and value placed on WHO the person is and how that affects the group which shares and values the bond

• The bond and the values must have strong effect on behavior within the society

• STRONG COMMUNITY

• characterizes pre-industrial societies

GESELLSCHAFT societies:

• essential condition of the society is the CONTRACT

• no bonds, feeling or individually inherent value is assumed

• value is based on WHAT a person can DO rather than WHO the person is

IMPORTANT DISCUSSION QUESTION:  What is the difference between WHO a person is and WHAT a person can do?  Be able to write about that.

• Contracts are made between various members of the society to provide required functions.  Contracts may be formal or informal, but usual legal penalties if terms of contract are not met

• parties are doing some thing exchange for something else

• Each tries to get the most for doing the least

• The good 'horse trade' is the goal

• Such is the basis for the modern culture.

• RESULT:

  • individual is more isolated

  • more anonymous

  • less willing to do things for others

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

• What are examples of Geselschaft in

  • society today?

  • in media?  Reality shows? Sex? Violence?  Bottom line?

  • Right to life issues?

  • In the value of the uneducated, elderly, poor,  ill, pre-born? 

EXTRA CREDIT OPTION:  Explain how the situations and/or characters illustrate Gemeinschaft or Geselschaff in the 10/2/03 Episode of E.R. entitled "The Lost" [ http://www.nbc.com/ER/episode_guide/205.html ] or the movie RADIO with Cuba Gooding Jr. to be released later this month. [ http://movies.go.com/movies/r/radio_2003/ ] 10 pts extra credit possible.

4.    Durkeheim's Analysis of the Division of Labor

This theory is similar to the others, but with some key differences.

• Durkeheim calls the society in which everyone is doing the same thing (i.e. a primitive or rural society) a mechanical socity

  • all doing the same things

  • have the same interests

  • result is mechanical solidarity

  • little need for anything else

  • those who are different may have a hard time 

  • Mechanical societies are based on homogeneity 

• The society in which  there is heavy division of labor is an organic society

  • division of labor causes people to have different interests, perspectives, and concerns

  • everyone is dependent upon each other

  • the culture is dependent upon heterogeneity

  • that heterogeneity is the basis of organic solidarity

  • dependence upon each other does not mean people think alike

  • may think so differently that ANOMIE sets in

    • anomie is disease of the organism

    • result of division of labor so extreme that society members can't relate to each other

    • people become pre-occupied with their own interests and not the interests of the society

      • no longer bound by traditional social values or ideals

      • result of declining morality and de-emphasis of religious and moral institutions and values

      • so people go after what they want regardless  of the impact of those actions on others

      • chaos results

    • can rip the society apart

      • individuals isolated

      • psychologically isolated

      • not interacting with each other; self focused

      • bound only with contractual ties 

    •  can also rip people apart: Durkheim cited increased suicide rates in mediated modern countries.

DISCUSSION :  Consider the difference between living in a small town and a larger city.  In the small town, every body knows everyone else's business and history. In the city, that's not usually true.

EMERGENCE OF MASS SOCIETY THEORIES:

IMPORTANT: Mass society is not the same as MASSIVE society.  India has a massive society, but it's still fairly simple in nature; it's not a mass society.

MASS SOCIETY refers to the relationship between people and the social order, and it has the following characteristics:

• people are psychologically isolated from each other

• they are detached from each other

• they are relatively free from social obligations

• characteristic of complex cultures

• people are interdependent but have no central unifying value or purpose

DISCUSSION:  Consider our concept of the people of New York before 9/11/01.  It was a big impersonal place with a very diversified population which was proud of their New York residence, but largely disconnected. It was perceived as an unfriendly place.  After the terrorist attacks, New Yorkers suddenly were unified by a horrific experience.  So when the blackout occurred in the summer of 2003, they were calm, resourceful, and supportive of each other.  It was though the events of 9/11 changed them from Geselschaft to Gemienschaft or from organic to mechanical.

1.`MASS SOCIETY AND THE MAGIC BULLET THEORY:

In the industrial societies at the turn of the 20th century, gemeinschaft was thought to be lacking.  That was a concern, especially during world war I when unified efforts were necessary to produce munitions, supplies and other materials needed for the war effort on both sides.  It was a concern even before the war, that if societies weren't unified, the harmony would lost as would national identity.  Therefore a BOND needed to be developed.  People were afraid of what media impact might do their lives, their countries, and their societies.

Mass society theory was based on several key assumptions:

• Media are dangerous and powerful.  In 1920s and 1930s there was concern that media had to be controlled or eliminated to protect the existing way of life.

• Average people can be powerfully influenced by media.  Ordinary people were not capable of defending themselves well against it. (Direct Effects Assumption) (EXTRA CREDIT OPPORTUNITY: Read George Orwell's 1984 and write a review of the book focusing on its application of mass society or other media theories. 25 pts possible)

• Significant negative consequences for individuals and for society could predictably occur once people were corrupted by media messages.

• Modern Mass societies isolated ordinary people from the strong social, cultural, and religious institutions which would offer defense against powerful media messages.

• Social chaos will result from lack of social unity and order will ultimately be restored by totalitarian or autocratic leadership.

• Because mass media messages are designed for broad audiences, easy production, quick understanding, they by their nature exclude that which is complex, sophisticated or requires time, thought or concentration to understand.  The culture is debased and civilization is "dumbed down."  

While we can look at this list and see how it reflects the time and social conditions of the 1930s and 1940s, some of those assumptions ring pretty true today.  

There are some modern Mass Society Theorists:

Michael Medved's popular book, Hollywood vs. America makes a very strong, common-sense case which is well-supported with media examples.  (This book is on your extra-credit reading list and on the book review list for Com 310 next semester. It's a good read, and students have really liked it in the past.)

Roger Scruton who has written that people without culture cannot appreciate high culture or even understand what it is or why it is important.  He also believes we have replaced important ideas and values with consumerism. It's easier to live in the make-believe world than the real one, and since we don't demand much of ourselves (no rites of passage, high goals, etc.) superficial media fill the gap.

Ben Bagdikian has mass society concerns as he writes about the perils of media concentration, the reduced number of gatekeepers and the growing pressure to make sure content is "what's good for the corporation" and not what's good for individuals or for society.

In the first half of the 20th Century brought serious concerns about the mass society concept and the power of media.  If media were so influential and so powerful, they  could be used to unite countries in times of crisis -- get people to work in the factories to support the war effort during WWI, encourage them to think the same way, encourage them to enlist.... Those could be positive uses of media....

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL BEGINNINGS....

Propaganda was seen as the answer:

• built a bond of emotion, conviction and fear to mobilize, motivate and maintain efforts desired

• stakes were seen as so high that ends justified the means and so horrible lies were told

Especially in time of war, ends justifying the means philosophy resulted in the fact that lies were not only acceptable, they were GOOD and NECESSARY to persuade people.

Classes of Propaganda emerged based on the degree of falsehood:

• Black propaganda: Deliberate transmission of outright lies. 

  • Nazi's:  Jews weren't people

• Gray Propaganda: Transmission of information which may or may NOT be true.  No effort made to determine whether it is or not

• White Propaganda: Intentional suppression of information which might be detrimental to the cause, while promotion of information which supports the cause.  Object is to DISTRACT from negatives by accentuating the positive.

Propaganda is the product of the time and people creating it:

Good and evil are defined by the propagandists and the cultures in which they live.

[Illustration: My Grandma Hutson was about 6 years old during World War I.  She told me of going to the post office in Huntington, Indiana as a little girl and seeing a floor to ceiling poster with a German Hun holding a rifle with bayonet, crouching menacingly, glaring, and wearing the helmet with the spike on top.  The sky was dark, the earth was parched, and things were burning in the background.  He had a little girl tucked under his arm, hanging limply.  Grandma said she would wake up at night screaming, having dreamed about that Hun and afraid he would come through her open window and carry her away....  While that characterization was over the top, it was deemed acceptable because WE were right and they were wrong...]

Propagandists are ELITIST or PATERNALISTS

• Low opinion of the public

• Not smart enough to reason logically

• SO you have to use the most efficient means possible to keep them in line

So...

Media messages were seen as magic bullets

• Mass media theory at the time was consistent with the concept of mass society

• Cleverly designed message would reach all of the people via mass media and each person would perceive them the same way and react in the same way

• Thus, public opinion could be shaped in almost any way if the message were formed in the right way 

And when people took off for the hills believing Martians had landed at Grover's Mill, NJ on Halloween, 1938, in response to the CBS Mercury Theatre of the Air broadcast of "War of the Worlds," that offered even more support.

World events in the 1930s also seemed to support the mass society theories. Nazi Germany built on the effective use of propaganda prior to WWI and was enormously successful.  One of Hitler's chief propaganda officers, Fritz Hippler said there were certain keys to successful propaganda efforts:

• Make a complex issue seem simple

• Repeat that simplified issue over and over and over and over...

Others have added additional key methods for success in propaganda:

• don't let people know you're trying to persuade them

• organize your communications very carefully -- how much you say when, how you add to the message, etc.

• select the signs in your text carefully so that they discourage much critical thinking -- i.e. weasel words, "it's virtually spotless!"

• do what ever is necessary --even lie-- to get your point across effectively. Your purpose is to persuade. Truth is secondary.

Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's propaganda chief is quoted in Baran and Davis (p. 73) as saying, "words can be molded until they clothe ideas in disguise." 

Early  propagandists theories were build on PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES....

1.    BEHAVIORISM:  Basic Stimulus - Response Theory (S-R)

• No mental powers engaged until AFTER the stimulus was received

• Only observable phenomena should be considered

• Media provided a clearly identifiable stimulus (or stimuli) which could trigger immediate responses

• easy to test

2.    FREUDIANISM: 

• Human psyche composed of three points:

  • EGO = rational or logical mind

  • ID = darker, pleasure-seeking side of the psyche

  • SUPEREGO = internalized set of cultural values (restrictive)

• Ego will usually lose control to ID or SUPEREGO

• Viewed  individual as incapable of rational control (even in a culture as 'civilized' as Germany)

The success of propaganda accounted for the belief in the power of mass media. 

3.    The primary theory was called THE MAGIC BULLET THEORY:  This is the first real mass com theory.

• sometimes called The Hypodermic Needle Theory

• basically a stimulus-response theory

• basic message-basic response

• power is in the message

Until the 1930s human response was thought to be primarily uniform and based on genetic qualities.  Considering this and related observations (particularly the success of propaganda and the War of the Worlds' phenomenon.)  The theory seemed very logical.

• SInce strong social ties were disrupted by industrial culture, masses could be easily swayed.

• Thus bullet theory was consistent with social and psychological theories of the time

• Propaganda and WOWTW supported the concept.

If media and propaganda were so powerful, then what policy issues resulted?   How should society control or use these powerful tools?

4.    Harold Lasswell proposed a new science of propaganda which would make social scientists the media elites who would make the decisions about how media would be used.

• Combined behaviorism and Freudianism

• Economic depression or crisis lowered the ability of people to detect propaganda for what it was

  • they were psychologically unbalanced

  • maybe not that smart to start with

  • therefore more easily manipulated

• Media messages like propaganda weren't always absorbed or reacted to instantaneously.

  • people needed to "primed" or gotten ready for changes or new ideas

  • long-term campaign strategy worked best

  • ideas and images should be introduced slowly and then reinforced

  • words and images must be carefully selected to create specific reactions in viewers or listeners

    • GOAL: creation of master symbol or collective symbol

      • so strong that it automatically causes specific reaction/emotion  (World Trade Center?)

      • even Hitler hadn't approached their construction scientifically

      • therefore, scientists were the most qualified to control such symbols and their uses

• Scientists would make sure propaganda would be used for good purposes rather than evil ones.

5.    Walter Lippman's THEORY OF PUBLIC OPINION FORMATION offered a similar approach.

• He thought people would never understand enough to make democracy function as it was originally intended.

• What good is democracy if you can't trust people to vote intelligently?

• He compared ordinary people to a deaf person sitting in the back row of a theatre.  The man has no idea what's happening, why it's happening, what ought to be going on, or how he can affect it. 

• Lippman agreed with Lasswell that control of media should be in the hands of a scientific elite which would use scientific methods to determine fact from fiction -- TECHNOCRACY  

These ideas of Lippman and Lasswell challenged the laisse faire approach to media that existed in the early parts of the 20th century.  They saw media  as large, powerful external entities delivering messages to people who were isolated and discouraged by modern culture. Somebody had to control this stuff or we were all in danger!  That might have been in opposition to the First Amendment as interpreted at the time, but so be it.   

6.  John Dewey:  (Humanism)  Yes, this is the same John Dewey of the Dewey Decimal System you use at the library.  Dewey believed that human beings could achieve anything the wanted if they only developed sufficiently.  He disagreed with Lasswell and Lippman that there was little hope that the average person could understand that media was trying to manipulate them.

• He believed that secular education was the key

• People could defend themselves from totalitarianism and propaganda if they were educated sufficiently

• communities were the key to that defense system

• when media companies just try to manipulate individuals by creating "pictures in their heads" they lose all credibility as significant protectors/leaders in society and become just another product competing for attention

7.  John Carey: (1989)

• agreed with Dewey

• Both men believed that media is integrated into the society and can't be filtered out or understood through a "who-says-what-to-whom" model (like the Laswell developed and is still used today).

• Media are not EXTERNAL agents, but are SERVANTS of the society to facilitate public discussion of issues

• Education makes discussion viable/possible

• Cultural Studies influence (more on that later)

Modern Propaganda Theories...

Modern writers on this issue hold that today propaganda is more broad than ever before and we are as oblivious to it as were the Germans prior to World War I.... The propaganda we see today may be in the form of media bias...

Herman and Chomsky proposed a new propaganda model which holds that media "serve, and propagandize on behalf of , the powerful societal interests that control and finance them.  The representatives of these interests have important agendas and principles that they want to advance, and they are well-positioned to shape and constrain them." (Herman and Chomsky, xi).  Five FILTERS are identified that make sure the business and government elites maintain their position and power:

• ownership -- increased media concentration and control of gate-keeping and information flow

• advertising -- promoting consumption and focus on THINGS and not issues which might threaten those elites

• sourcing -- limit number of resources which can be accessed

• flak -- P.R. efforts to spin or manipulated impressions and truth

• support the status quo -- miracle market; market is everything valuable....  (so may have lots of products competing for your money but there is no question that you have to have at least some of them; if you have money you need to spend it. Stuff wins.)

The conservative right often criticize media because of liberal bias or a liberal propaganda.  Sometimes their concerns are justified.

But Baran and Davis make a good point that much of what we see as "bias" may be inherent concern for preserving the medium's status quo in the marketplace, perpectives and viewpoints which seem so obvious because they are so often presented that we don't even recognize them as such.  Nor do we miss the one persepctives or viewpoints we never hear for the same reasons.

See Baran and Davis: p. 50 for Six Assumptions of Mass Society Theories

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. What problems do you see with Lasswell and Lippmans' "Technocracy" position?

2. What are the flaws in Dewey/Carey's "Education-Is-The-Answer" position?

__

Copyright, 2003

Dr. Janet McMullen

jlmcmullen@una.edu