4.1 Mass media (communication) defined
Generally, the term media has referred to the technological media, such as radio, television, the printing press, etc. In contrast, the researcher will here attempt to introduce a wider argument about the process of mediation, where the whole context of the cultural practice of communication is implied, although the focus is on the media sphere.
Human communication (in distinction from animal or machine-to-machine communication) is discerned by De Beer (1998:7) into six different and distinct contexts, of which the last is identified as: Mass communication – the process when people (mass communicators) communicate through intermediate media such as television or newspapers or relatively large, heterogeneous and anonymous collections of individuals and groups (mass communication audiences). Mass communication is characterised by the fact that it cannot be separated from the individual or society. It is a very distinctive phenomenon of the twentieth century, a very pervasive force that affects every single aspect of our daily lives. Some elements of mass communication, such as television, satellite message distribution and compact discs, are marvellous technological wonders of our age, while others such as books and newspapers, go far back in history. (De Beer 1998: 5-6)
The mass media can therefore be divided into ‘old’ media such as film, magazines, newspapers, radio and television, and ‘new’ media such as the Internet, digital television, and WAP-based
technology141. Last mentioned has the capacity to enable communication with potentially large numbers of people in a diverse range of social settings. Traditionally, the mass media have been defined as those media that allow the communication of messages or texts between ‘senders’ and
‘receivers’.
Lister et al. (2000: 10-11) points to (among others) the following phenomena as indicative of wider kinds of change with which new media are associated:
1. A shift from modernity to postmodernity: a contested, but widely subscribed attempt to characterise deep and structural changes in societies and economies from the 1960’s onwards, with correlative cultural changes. In terms of their aesthetics and economies new media are usually seen as a key marker of such change.
2. Intensifying processes of globalisation: a dissolving of national states and boundaries - in terms of trade, corporate organisation, customs and cultures, identities and beliefs - in which new media have been seen as a contributory element.
3. A replacement, in the West, of an industrial age of manufacturing by a ‘post-industrial’
information age: a shift in employment, skill, investment and profit, in the production of material goods to service and information ‘industries’ which many uses of new media are seen to epitomise.
“New media are caught up with and seen as part of these other kinds of change (as both cause and effect), and the sense of ‘new times’ and ‘new eras’ which follow in their wake. In this sense, the emergence of ‘new media’ as some kind of epoch-making phenomena, is seen part of a much larger landscape of social, technological and cultural change; in short, as part of a new technoculture.” (Lister et al, 2000:10-11)
141 According to Lister et al. (2000: 9-11) the term “new media” is a blanket description that subsumes a whole range of different practices and processes. “New media” can therefore not be used as a collective singular noun as if it referred to a more or less coherent entity. It rather immediately suggests something far less settled, known and identified. On the one hand, it represents a rapidly changing set of formal and technological experiments and, on the other, a complex set of interactions between new technological possibilities and established media forms. “So, while a person using ‘new media’ may have one kind of thing in mind (the Internet), others may mean something else (digital TV, new ways of imaging the body, a virtual environment or a game). All use the same term to refer to a range of phenomena. In doing so they each claim the status of ‘medium’ for the thing they have in mind and they all borrow the glamorous connotations of ‘newness’. ” (Lister et al. 2000: 11)
Media professionals working in the media industries produce media products, which are increasingly seen as commodities to be bought and sold in a globalised market place. Many of these products or texts have significance in the day-to-day lives of many audience members in different parts of the globe. The texts may be a primary source of information and knowledge about the social world and most significantly about relationships of power. Media texts have a further potency in the way in which cultural and political differences are constructed and defined.
An understanding of the mass media therefore has to go further than a narrow technical definition of the media as the medium of communication between senders and receivers. It should be understood as industries or organisations, where media texts are commodities as well as cultural products, and where and when the media act as powerful agents of social change and transformation. (Devereux 2003:8). Media audiences are informed and entertained by these above-mentioned mass media industries. A significant amount of people’s leisure time is taken up with mass media consumption, and mass media content itself plays an important role in the day-to-day conversations and interactions in which members of society engage. Mass media content draws upon and contributes to the discourses or form of knowledge that we have about the wider social world.
4.2 The power of the mass media
As it has been made clear thus far in this chapter, it has become a truism to observe that we live in media-saturated societies. The mass media – and particularly television – have become the cultural epicenter of our world (McCullagh 2002: 1). It has become routine and normal in our everyday life to encounter the media. Media production is now one of the largest and most lucrative industrial sectors in the global economy142.
Yet for all of its dominant presence in our lives, there is a feeling that this kind of media saturation is not a ‘good’ thing. The media, and in particular television, have been credited with
142 According to McCullagh (2002) thirteen of the 100 richest people in the world are media magnates. “Media consumption is the predominant activity in the domestic sphere in industrialised societies, and second only to work in terms of the time spent on it.” (McCullagh 2002: 2)
‘fabulous’ powers to change people and have been blamed for contributing to most social ills. It has been blamed for the undermining of trust in politics, the decline of religion, the increase in crime and violence in society, the dumbing down of popular culture, the growth of permissiveness, and as, generally speaking, having the power to corrupt and deprave143. (McCullagh, 2002; Wardrip-Fruin and Montfort (eds.), 2003)
O’ Sullivan et al. (1998: 3) gives attention to the importance of ritual interaction with modern media. This means that forms of media consumption - reading, watching, listening etc. – are particular ways of creatively participating in the life of modern culture. This active participation operates to express aspects of collective identity and to bind individuals into society and culture as a whole. In this manner, the media have been termed ‘consciousness industries’, involved in the manufacture or management of the public sphere, of consensus and consent. That is, in providing images, interpretations and explanations of events occurring in the wider world, the modern media do not simply and neutrally provide information about that world, but actively encourage us to see and understand it in particular ways and in certain terms144.
Rather than faithfully ‘mirroring’ the external world and its ‘reality’, O’ Sullivan et al. (1998:19-20) argues that the media have come to play an increasingly central role in constructing and interpreting the nature of that world according to cultural principles, ideological frameworks and certain values. For those engaged in the systematic study of the mass media, this recognition has resulted in a general and sustained focus upon questions of media representation – how and in what terms do the media re-present aspects of society and social process to their audiences.
In short: media content acts as an extremely powerful source of social meaning. The mass media are centrally involved in the social construction of reality for audience members, giving them an understanding – however limited – of both their immediate and their more distant social
143 For an in-depth discussion on the power of the media, see Media and Power, James Curran (2002).
144 The communication vectors of the Internet, the dynamic spaces of videogames, the ‘technological imaginary’ of all of these are interwoven, fitting into the architecture of the home, established rhythms of family and social life, and dramatised by the instrumental fantasies of hardware and software producers and retailers and the action-filled narratives of popular culture. Thus, the everyday consumption of new media circulates through popular culture and computer culture. Technology, media, performance, play, consumption, family and gender relationships are all intertwined. (Lister et al. 2000: 279).
contexts. In this way -(with regards to this study’s focus)- the mass media “creates” and
“reflects” a diverse variety of masculinity forms and schemata of interpretation to evaluate it.
4.3 Mass media in a globalising world
Globalisation has been defined in various ways145. It can be seen as the process whereby political, social and cultural relations increasingly take on a global scale, and which has very real and significant consequences for individual’s local experiences and everyday lives. Some social analysts maintain that globalisation has been one of the most significant changes to have taken place over the last three decades of the twentieth century, and its impact has been felt by individuals and nations world-wide. Globalisation has also become a ‘buzzword’ among media professionals and appears regularly in the press. However there is considerable disagreement over its possible consequences. Some who take an optimistic approach see globalisation as having many benefits, especially in empowering local communities to produce their own media products.
In recent decades there has been a revolution in communication systems - new technologies146 such as cable and information communication technology have transformed the scope of the mass media. The global media culture embodies many Western capitalist values such as the free market, consumerism, individualism and commercialism. Globalisation is a dynamic process and the media world changes daily147. New mergers occur, more resistance is generated. (Jones and Jones 1999: 218-221)
145 Generally speaking, it can be said that globalisation fundamentally affects three areas of society, namely the economic, political and cultural spheres. Some definitions of globalisation (in addition to other definitions which has been referred to in earlier chapters) are: Globalisation is “the compression of the world and the intensification of consciousness of the world as a whole” (Robertson 1992: 8); Globalisation refers to “the rapidly developing process of complex interconnections between societies, cultures, institutions and individuals world-wide. It is a social process which involves a compression of time and space, shrinking distances through a dramatic reduction in the time taken – either physically or representationally – to cross them, so making the world seem smaller and in a certain sense bringing them ‘closer’ to one another” (Tomlinson 1999:165)
146 Almost all of these new technologies are the products of advanced capitalist societies, as is much of the content.
This is having important effects on globalisation and culture, for example: It exports the ideology of consumerism.
National boundaries are dissolving as we increasingly learn to look at the world through global spectacles. The world is becoming media-saturated and we are able to experience world events simultaneously. (Jones and Jones 1999:
223)
147 Therefore, there are two contradictory trends at work both globally and nationally: towards cohesion and/or towards fragmentation. Globalisation can promote both, it depends on the context. Media content can be understood
So what is the real significance of media globalisation? Whatever its shortcomings, as a process media globalisation is both extremely powerful and laden with various ambiguities and contradictions. It has come about because of the convergence of old and new media organizations and technologies to form immensely powerful transnational conglomerates148. (Devereux 2003:28)
A great deal of the reported globalisation of people’s local lives is as a result of mass mediation.
The emphasis within globalisation theory is on the supposed shrinkage between the distant and the local. “People’s local lives are increasingly lived in the shadow of global phenomena. The
‘spectre of globalisation’ is present in people’s everyday experiences and it is particularly evident in terms of our working lives, our consumption – especially in our shopping and eating – and our mass media activities.” (Devereux 2003: 31)