The structure and organization of modern mass media communication are the focus of this chapter. The discussion centres on the diversity of media effects and their social-political implications. Furthermore, the Anglo-American media expansion and domination is pointed out and discussed in relation to the concepts of ‘media’ and ‘cultural’ imperialism.
Our century has been characterized as the age of mass communication. The different forms of mass media such as newspapers, radio, television, books or magazines have become the principal purveyors, in our societies, of fact, fiction, entertainment and information. The rapid development of mass media and their potential influence have led many to wonder about the actual role they play in social life and behaviour. It is a reoccurring theme in mass communication research that mass communications are all-powerful, in fact they determine thought and action to a major degree. The effects of media communication have been the principal concern of mass communication research and a major body of data derives from basic principles of communication.
It is argued therefore in this chapter that the ways in which modern mass communications are organized partly reveal their twofold function on economic and ideological levels. This function of the media is consequently responsible for certain socio-political implications either in a national, or more interestingly in an international context. Mass media influences are the main concern in this chapter and they are examined through a series of case studies and proposed analytical models of mass media effects. It is also stressed that the Anglo-American mass media own and control the international media flow. Still, it should be kept in mind that the comic industry, which is the focus of the next chapter, is subject to this American control over the international media network. Moreover, the media effects discussed here may also account for the social effects of comic magazines.
Economic and ideological aspects of mass media organization
Most of the cultural products supplied by the media are market commodities; they have to be sold and they have to be sufficiently profitable to persuade the organizations that provide them that it is worth continuing to do so. Golding (1974:44-47) describes four main sources of revenue for culture producing organization: directly from sales of the product; from advertising; from public subscription, normally through license fees; and, financial support for their operation from the government.
The contemporary evolutionary stage of the mass media is characterized by two elements which account for the economic level of media operations: industrialization and internationalization. Industrialization, argues Golding (1974), described as concentration, is a part of the wider ‘takeover boom’ of the 1960s when large numbers of media companies have become integrated into large combines. To spread risks into a wider range of profits and facilitate cost reduction, the media industries have diversified into a series of related activities in leisure and general industrial sectors. Sometimes though, solutions to problems are sought overseas, what Golding refers to as ‘a multifaceted process of internationalization’, in three aspects: the growth of exports; the ownership of foreign media companies by British media; or, foreign American ownership of British media (‘Americanisation’).
On a final paper of an international seminar on mass communications organization within the Latin America countries (International General, 1981) an important ideological aspect of mass media operation was pointed out. The seminar concluded on the general aims of the messages transmitted by the mass media as being: (1) to maintain in operation the existing system of production through the greatest possible consumption of commodities of commodities produced, generally, the creation of needs for new, unnecessary and alienating commodities... (2) To sustain the structure of political power, and thus strengthen the reigning economic and social order, obscuring its inherent contradictions... (3) The reinforcement of an individualistic and atomized overall vision of society..., and (4) to reduce the consumers' critical capacity through the constant saturation of the market for messages... (International General, 1981:236).
These ends of the mass media make clear the political implications of media organization in both national and international contexts. It was argued in the same seminar that these goals are achieved through a deliberated and systematic manipulation of the ideological content of messages. This process would include: (1) the fabrication of false news-items usually intended to discredit popular governments, parties or movements; (2) the deliberate omission or mutilation of information; (3) the practical absorption of ideologies and values opposed to the statues quo in order to create an apparent identification of the media with popular interests; and (4) the edification of an ideology of neutrality and objectivity (International General, 1981:236-237).
Klapper (1960) has also noted that commercial mass communication in a free enterprise society has been widely claimed to be of necessity a force toward the reinforcement of dominant cultural values, and to be economically constrained from exposing any view which is questioned by any significant portion of its potential audience. The economic character of commercial media, too, in a free enterprise society is such that they appear destined forever to play to social attitudes. Moreover they appear to reinforce socially prevalent attitudes far more often than they are likely to create or convert attitudes.
There are then interrelated elements of economic and ideological nature operating within the structure and organization, and which partly account for the social power, of mass media. But it is also a fact that the mass media are themselves invested with an aura of prestige by a large portion of their audience. Lazarsfeld and Merton (1948:101-102) argued that this is partly explained of the fact that ‘the mass media bestow prestige and enhance the authority of individuals and groups by legitimating their status...’
Effects of the mass media
Communication processes, it was argued in the introductory part of the work, are an essential entity of our world. Therefore they can be expected to have a great effect upon the nature of a society. The major focus of traditional communication research has been on media effects with the major question being, ‘what effect do the media have on their audience?’
Mass media have shown a diversity of effects. This accounts for the different classifications of media effects under which researchers have developed their analyses. Hovland (1968) has pointed out mass media effects operating in a variety of areas such as entertainment, knowledge, information and skill; predispositions, in terms of preferences and tastes, opinions, beliefs and attitudes, and prejudice; and, stereotypes, what Lippmann (1922) has termed the ‘faulty generalizations about the characteristics of various groups.’
Researchers have also defined ‘political effects’, referring typically to media-induced changes in the political attitudes of individuals considered in isolation. One aspect of political communication processes has been the political context of effects. Seymour-Ure (1974:63) argues with respect to the political implications of media effects that they may vary according to the level of political relationships considered. Moreover, the significance of media-induced effects on those relationships, argues Seymour-Ure, will depend upon the virtually endless range of political questions in which an inquirer may be interested.
Klapper (1974) has pointed out some broad general principles applicable to short-term effects of mass communication within specific areas, such as the aesthetic and intellectual taste of its audiences, or their predispositions towards crime and violence. In general, mass communication, according to Klapper, reinforces the existing attitudes, tastes, predispositions, and behavioral tendencies of its audience members, including tendencies toward change. Its reinforcement effect is potent and socially important, though its social effects depend primarily on the way the society as a whole fashions the audience members whom mass communication serves. Some societies, for example, as those under military regime, may stress more on media operation in the manipulation of the audience's social attitudes and opinion. So the important question would probably be it is possible to create in people predispositions. Children seem to be particularly good subjects for such an attempt since they are naturally ‘changers’.
A considerable number of both disciplined social researchers and lay critics have expressed the belief that the plethora of escapist material in the mass media may tend to promote social apathy. It has been argued that escapist material, by producing habitual mode of relief for the tensions, can thus reduce the likelihood of social criticism (Walpes, Berelson & Bradshaw, 1940; Dollard, 1945; Lazarsfeld & Merton 1948).
The media message as a propaganda message was an old favorite of social and media research though of considerable contemporary importance. Propaganda can be called ‘the attempt to affect the personalities and to control the behaviour of individuals toward ends considered unscientific or of doubtful value in a society at a particular time’ (Doob, 1949:58). Propaganda operates when there is no science or when people's values are in conflict, and it has been seen as an assort to limit the ‘freedom of choice’ available to audience members. Propaganda has an intentional character and when it is directed toward a single individual takes the form of ‘persuasion’. An ‘action response’ is the learned attitude and the objective of the propagandist. Photographs, drawings or cartoons have often been thought to evoke the responses desired by the artist or propagandist. The propaganda message is often within the text and the illustration serves the perceptual framework of directing the reader to the text.
The media have often been criticized for being strongly pervasive forms of communication as they degrade the taste of the masses, and they encourage people to do things they would otherwise not consider. One of the theoretical perspectives providing an explanation of the influences of the media on people has been Kelman's (1961) social influence model. He suggests three basic processes of social influence: (1) compliance, which occurs when an individual accepts influence from another person or group because he or she hopes to obtain a favorable reaction from the others: (2) identification, referring to the case where an individual adopts a particular behaviour because it is associated with a satisfying self-defining relationship to the other person or group; and (3) internalization, meaning the process by which an individual accepts influence because the behaviour is congruent with his or her value system, or because the content of behaviour is rewarding. Kelman's summary of the distinction between the three processes appears in Figure 1.1.
Figure 1.1: Summary of the distinction between the three processes (Kelman, 1961:67)
McQuail (1977:72-74) argues on the stages of research interests of media effects. He notes that after the 1960s the main concern was concentrated around the influence of mass communication especially television and newspaper news. Consequently media research of that time re-opened the question of mass media effects resting on several bases, but mainly concentrating on the key concept of attitude. We are now in a phase where the concern is on the social power of the media. What we know about the effects of mass media is not only the result of research, but of more recent arguments dealing with the needs of the media industry. Gebner (1967) sees the key of the effects of mass media in their capacity to take over the ‘cultivation’ of images and consciousness in an industrial society: The truly revolutionary significance of modern mass communications... is the ability to form historically new bases for collective thought and action quickly, continuously and pervasively across the previous boundaries of time, space and status (Gebner, 1967:41). A common theme is the observation that experience, or what we take for experience, is increasingly directed and ‘mediated’, and more people receive a similar ‘version’ of the world.
The social power of the media, then, can be seen in five aspects summarized by McQuail (1977). He points out that the mass media can: (1) attract and direct attention to problems, solutions, or people; (2) confer status and confirm legitimacy; (3) be a channel for persuasion and mobilization; (4) help to bring certain kinds of public into being and maintain them; and (5) be a vehicle for offering psychic rewards and gratification (McQuail, 1977:90-91).
A new line of communications inquiry and work seeks to shift sharply the context of the discussion and research about the relations among the media, society and the individual, what has been termed as critical research. Critical research seeks to examine the relationship among media, communication and social power, and also the role the media play in maintaining the class stratified societies of the Western world.
Following Curran, Gurevitch and Woollacott (1982) it is possible to define three major research approaches on media effects within the critical research perspective. First, the structuralist approach which seeks to examine the implicit categories of thought in media texts through which the individual experiences the world. Secondly, the political economy approach which focuses upon the economic structure and processes of media production (Murdock & Golding, 1977); in particular, this approach studies the increasing monopolization and concentration of control within the media industries. It sees the media producing and disseminating a false consciousness which legitimates the class interests of those who own and control the media. Finally, cultural studies focus on the media message and assume that the media content and impact are shaped by the societal environment in which media message are produced and received (Hall, 1980).
Take all together, the critical perspective focuses either on the control and production of media messages or their content in the context of examining how the media develop a specific ideology that supports a class-dominated society. The concern is away from an analysis of the media effect and more toward an analysis of message content and moreover of message production. It is among these lines that the content analysis of this thesis is conducted, stressing on the comics message and drawing upon a multi-viewpoint based on historical, political, economic and sociological analytical principles. Four sociological-based models of media impact have been developed focusing on message content and/or message production. As McQuail and
Windahl (1981:6091) have noted these models view effects as long-term and indirect. Moreover, they reintroduce the notion of powerful media.
Figure 1.3: An example of a spiral of silence: mass media expressing dominant opinion together with an increasing lack of interpersonal support for deviant views bring about a spiral of silence, with an increasing number of individuals either expressing the dominant opinion or failing to express deviant ones (after Noelle-Neumann,1974) (McQuail and Windahl, 1981).
(Figure pending)
Figure 1.4: Non-closing information gap (after Thunberg et al, 1979) (McQuail and Windahl, 1981).
The basic idea behind the agenda setting model is that the media developed agendas for the audience (McCombs, 1981). The media select from a wide range of possible issues and topics and by giving them differential attention and emphasis, define for the audience the relative importance of each. The model emphasizes on ways the media shape the larger cultural environment of the audience in terms of the issues or topics they deemphasize or ignore (Figure 1.2.).
The spiral of silence model developed by Noelle-Neumann (1974, 1980) centres on the ability of the media to remove from public view and discussion certain issues and topics (Figure 1.3.). The model is based on the assumption that individuals strive to avoid isolation by avoiding to hold attitudes, beliefs or opinions not held by the majority of society. The spiral of silence develops as people look to the media for prevailing definition of reality, which reality is in agreement among the media because of the monopolistic nature of the media and the inherent routines of media production.
The knowledge-gap model focuses on the examination of relationships between media impact and social power in terms of the distribution of media information among various social classes (Tichenor, 1982). The basic idea behind this model is that ‘as the inflation of mass media information into a social system increases, segments of the population with higher socioeconomic status tend to acquire this information at a faster rate than the lower socio-economic segment’, so that the gap in knowledge between the segments tend to increase than decrease (Tichenor, 1982:81). The model (Figure 1.4.) presents insights into the manner the media can act to strengthen the political and economic structure of class-stratified capitalist societies.
Figure 1.5 : Ball-Rokeach and Defleur’s dependency model, showing the interdependence between society,
mass media, audience and effects (after Ball-Rokeach and Defleur) (McQuail and Windahl, 1981).
Finally, the dependency model of media effects (Figure 1.5.) formulated by Ball-Rockeach and DeFleur (1976, 1982), views audience effects in the context of the complexity of the larger social structure in which the individuals become more dependent on the media for information about, and orientation to, the larger social world. The model seeks to explain effects in terms of the historical conditions of society and its media. Ball-Rockeach and DeFleur are suggesting that it is the societal conditions that determine the power and type of media effects.
Mass media imperialism
Studies of media development and processes of mass communication in the developed and advanced industrial countries of the World have typically adopted framework of reference. Nevertheless, forms of international media activities have contributed to the emergence of an entirely different perspective and evaluation of the role of modern communication, what has been termed as media imperialism. The term refers to the processes by which ownership, structure, distribution or content of modern mass communications have operated to create, maintain and expand systems of domination and dependence on a world scale.
The media imperialism approach is based on, ‘an emphasis on global structure, whereby it is precisely the international socio-political system that decisively determines the course of development within the sphere of each nation’ (Fejes, 1981:281). It is especially the phenomenal acceptability of American cultural influence through the media that led to an analysis of international media activities. The analysis, as Boyd-Barrett (1977:117) notes, reveals two outstanding features of the influence process. First, the unidirectional nature of international media flow, with exported media products from the U.S. without return flow. Secondly, the relatively small source of international media influences, which if identified, they are in a handful of giant media conglomerates, mostly American. This absence of reciprocation of media influence by the affected country combines both the element of cultural invasion by another power and the element of imbalance of power resources between the countries concerned. Both justify the use of ‘imperialism’ term.
The media imperialism approach then is a point of view that is implicitly adopted in this thesis. The approach views the media situated as they were in a transnational context, as an obstacle to meaningful and well-balanced socio-economic progress. This focus of research on transnational agents dominating the international structure and flow of communication has been probably best reflected in the works by Schiller (1969, 1971), Mattelart (1979), Varis (1973) and others. Media imperialism can be seen as one part of the larger change in development thinking with the appearance of the dependency model.
The major conclusion of the dependency model is that the Third World countries occupy a subordinate position in the international economic and political systems which are seen as being structured primarily according to the needs of the developed countries. The dependency model can be seen as a counterpart of earlier theories of imperialism, reformulated from the point of view of underdeveloped countries (Portes, 1976). In that sense ‘effective national development’ comes to be interpreted as the ‘liberation from dependency’. It is within the broad context of the dependency approach of communication researchers investigate media imperialism (Cruise O'Brien, 1979; Salinas & Paldan, 1979; Lee, 1980). This broad context concentrates on (1) the role of transnational corporations or media interests in shaping communications between developed and underdeveloped countries; (2) an analysis of media imperialism as a historical phenomenon; and (3) cultural consequences of the content of various media products (Fejes, 1981:286-287).
Media imperialism analysis of communication networks reveals another aspect: control, as a basic form of imperialism. Mattelart (1974, 1976) was the first to study the problems of internationalization in the communication sphere. The motive was the principle of the free flow of information that the U.S. had been defending for more than thirty years, and which allowed American producers of programmes to flood the world with there goods. But it was also the fact that the U.S. has also possessed technological tools which allow them to impose their domination in wider, not only economic but ideological spheres too. The latter led to the development of another aspect of media imperialism, with reference to national cultures, that of cultural imperialism. Flitchy (1980) notes: National culture in the era of the multinationals must assume the reproduction on the dependence of the national bourgeoisie of the United States while at the same time assuring the reproduction of their hegemony as the dominant class of a given nation; that is to say, must continue to confirm them as national bourgeoisies (Flitchy, 1980:183).
The same problematic is found again in Mattelart and Mattelart's (1979) work where they examine ways in which national and multinational cultures are articulated in each of the sectors of mass culture.
Control and ownership of mass communication
With respect to the origin and location control of modern mass communications, and its subsequent socio-political implications, Tunstall (1977) has mad it clear in the title of his work, that ‘The Media Are American’. The cultural imperialism thesis claims similarly that authentic, traditional and local culture in many parts of the world is being battered out of existence by the indiscriminate dumping of large quantities of slick commercial and media products, mainly from the United States. This is inevitably leading to the creation of a problem of cultural identity, consequently to problems of national identity. Tunstall's central thesis is that the media are about commerce, politics and ideas. Therefore, he argues, the Anglo-American media - operating in the fields of politics, entertainment, culture and commerce on a world scale - cannot possibly be ‘value neutral’ (Tunstall, 1977:201).
The United States media, argues Tunstall, emerged from and reflect the assumptions of American politics: ‘U.S. media do not just 'fit' the system... they are an essential part of it ‘ (Tunstall, 1977:263). Certain links can be indicated between the United States government's domestic and external media policies. A report of the Congressional Committee concerned with ‘winning the cold war’ and ‘ideological operation and foreign policy’ illustrates the link between the political aspect of mass media and American foreign policy: For many years military and economic power, used separately, or in conjunction, have serves as the pillars of diplomacy. They still serve that function today but the recent increase in influence of the masses of the people over governments, together with greater awareness on the part of the leaders of the aspirations of people, brought about by the concurrent revolution of the twentieth century, has created a new dimension for foreign policy operation. Certain foreign policy objectives can be pursued by dealing directly with the people of foreign countries, rather than with their governments. Through the use of modern instruments and techniques of communication it is possible today to reach large or influential segments of national populations, to inform them, to influence their attitudes, and at times perhaps even to motivate them to a particular course of action. These groups, in turn, are capable of excerpting noticeable, even decisive, pressures, on their governments (Committee on Foreign Affairs, 1964:6).
An Intra-Governmental Committee on International Communications, including representatives of the Federal Communications Commission, the Office of Telecommunication Management, and the State, Justice and Defense Departments, reported in April 1966 that ‘telecommunications has progressed from being an essential support of our international activity in being also an instrument of foreign policy’ (Intra-Governmental Committee on International Telecommunications, 1966:1). Since 1950, the tendency for American commercial media and U.S. government agencies to help each other becomes more evident. The Americans become the senior partners in a government media alliance which turned anti-Nazi to Anti-Communist propaganda. The convert media operations of the U.S. government were carried on primarily by the Central Intelligence Agency (C.I.A.), which set up Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberation, and various transmitters of the Voice of America.
Commercial assumptions, based on the U.S. domestic market also lie behind all American media. Tunstall (1977:265) points out that some fifteen American and five British organizations each offering a variety of materials and services, together sell the entire media range from foreign news to hit songs, and from features films to comic strips. These media exports both predate and still run ahead of the general American economic presence overseas or the multinational company phenomenon. Moreover, ‘a non-American way of the media box is difficult to discover because it is an American or Anglo-American build box...’ (Tunstall, 1977:63). Nevertheless, an illustration of how Anglo-American media values are diffused around the world is provided by a batch of six international media organizations, sharing common goals, such as development of media networks, international ‘help and advice’, or encouragement of media autonomy and freedom, within and between individual countries (Tunstall, 1977:219). Two organizations of newspaper owners and broadcasters, the Inter-American Press Association and the Inter-American Association of Broadcasters, deal with the entire American continent. The Commonwealth Broadcasting Association, and the equivalent in press, the C.P.U., deal with the British Commonwealth. Two more organizations are open to the entire world, The International Press Institute (I.P.I.) and the International Broadcast Institute (I.B.I.). That international media organizations of this kind should be dominated by American and British Commonwealth values and personnel is, if not inevitable, then at least extremely probable. Exposure to and assistance towards international markets, then is more likely to assist and promote Anglo-American media products and influences.
Mattelart (1978) argues that the current phase of capitalism is characterized by the acceleration of monopolization, a process of the concentration of enterprises, which beyond the economic sphere, mobilizes all sphere of human activity, the entire mode of production of life in a society. This process, Mattelart (1978:39) notes, reinforces the ensemble of apparatuses of ideological control: ‘Any transmission of knowledge comes under the rule of the media and mass culture becomes a spectacle... this tendency, which has reached its highest point in the vanguard of international capitalism, the United States, is better understood if we turn to the notion of mass media and culture as a system’. The current conditions of capitalism require us to regard all these supports as a system. Each specific medium reflects a different state of productive forces and thus of the maturation of monopoly capital.
Summarizing then, the main points stressed in this chapter are:
(1) the structure and organization of modern mass communications is clearly pointing out their economic and ideological interrelated characteristics functions;
(2) the considerable prestige the media have obtained from their audience accounts for the social power of mass media;
(3) there is a diversity of the types of mass media effects ranging from reinforcive short-term effects on knowledge, information and predispositions, to strong long-term socio-political influences either on individuals such as social apathy, or on political regimes, such as cultural invasion;
(4) propaganda is a pervasive function of mass media communication and aims to limit the ‘freedom of choice’ available to the audience. Compliance, identification and internalization have been suggested to be basic stages of media social influence process (Kelman, 1961).
(5) the concern of critical discussion and research of media effects has focused on the social power of the media, especially the control and production of media messages or their ideological content;
(6) the various theoretical perspectives in mass communication research have rated, and tried to explain media effects, as shaping the cultural environment of the audience, maintaining monopolistic control over public opinion, or strengthening the political and economic structure of class-stratified capitalist societies;
(7) the unidirectional nature and small source of international media flow as well as the Anglo-American media expansion and domination have led to the development of the dependency model on an international level, that has been termed media imperialism, and its associated notion of cultural imperialism; and,
(8) transnational agents located and originated in the Anglo-American context tend have to a great extent managed to create, through a powerful international mass media network, cultural and ideological control of under or less-developed countries.
The origins and location of social power of the comic industry, as a form of media imperialism, is the main concern of the next chapter. The American ownership or control identified in this chapter, in the media network over the world, is also reflected in the development and expansion of the comic industry. Moreover, as it is examined in the last chapters, cultural values in the ideological content of comic magazines, are also reflections of dominant values of American culture. It would seem then reasonable to suggest that comic magazines are about American business.
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