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Advisor(s)
Abstract(s)
At a time when, apparently, we have the right degree of freedom and extraordinary technical means to expand those qualitative aspects which are crucial to a good society, such as communication and culture, there are increasingly loud voices questioning the role of the mass media in creating a public arena guided by what Max Weber called ethical or “substantive rationality.” For many, the discussion of contrary opinions and the exchange of reasoned arguments has been severely compromised by a flow of information which encourages iconomania, or a passion for the image, and promotes the supremacy of the visual over the intelligible and the decay of abstract thought and of clear, distinct ideas, in sum, by reducing the potentialities opened up by the modern world to their merely strategic elements.
In this essay, while not doubting such negative effects of developments in the information sphere as have occurred, I seek to understand the persistence of certain ways of thinking about modern society which neither accept that communication can be reduced to the mere conveying of commodified information, nor are limited to highlighting the perverse effects of the progress of reason and technology. My argument takes into account the perennial aspects of communication, namely participatory experience, contact, sharing, commonality, and the establishing of reflexive ties over time between the community and its cultural context. The development of a civic, universalist and cultural notion of communication may usefully draw on neglected ideas such as those of the Chicago School in the 1920s and of Canadian thinker Harold Innis. In the context of the shifts and changes of our age, these types of thinking, undertaken by other thinkers, have significant potential for increasing awareness that communication is only possible by means of those modalities which create experience and the feeling of belonging to a community.
Description
Keywords
Mass media Culture Communication
Citation
Subtil, F. (2006, september, 15-16). Mass media and erosion of culture. Paper presented at Conference: Internationalising Media Studies: Imperatives and Impediments, at Westminster University, London, England
Publisher
Communication and Media Research Institute (CAMRI)
School of Media, Arts and Design, University of Westminster
School of Media, Arts and Design, University of Westminster