Theory of Mass Society - Essay Example

Communication Communication Any society thrives to maintain itself by reproducing its s and structures of social relationships (Grossberg, 2006). It reproduces the things necessary for its existence. In order to maintain its existence, the society must ensure that its relations of power, hierarchies of economic, political and cultural power operate with legitimacy of people’s lives. Communication is misused by some leaders through forceful rule and suppressing opposition. In this case, ideologies are the best way of getting people to accept ways that are not agreed upon by all people. The use of ideological power has made people think that the conventions are part of social life shaped up in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. An excellent example is the ideology of terrorism and gender. It is quite common that when the word terrorist is mentioned, most people think of the youthful people. 2) Mass society is a theory that refers to the disruptive consequences that were created by industrialization and urbanization (Strinati, 1995). The rise of mechanized industrial production and industrialization, densely populated cities have destabilized societies as well as their culture and values. These changes in the society included the removal of the agrarian work tied to land and destruction of the tight community bond. Furthermore, they have growth of scientific knowledge, spread of mechanized factory work, development of large cities and the gradual loss of moral integration. Popular culture is a mass culture in the society. A mass society simply consists of people who can only relate to each other just like atoms in a chemical compound. This means that links between people have to in contractual connotation and very distant. This society makes people to resemble their devices. Unfortunately, this creates a moral crisis in the society. Mass culture, therefore, is a result of the mass society. The lack of appropriate mediatory organizations and proper moral behavior makes individuals vulnerable to mass media and popular culture. However, Mass culture theorists have claimed that democracy and education add to the pathological condition of mass society. In this 21st century, popular culture is more applicable in my view. This is evident among the teenagers of this current generation who have adopted the lifestyle of Western Culture. This mainly influenced by mass media because they gather ideas from it to control how they live daily. 3) The Feminist approaches to communication constitute a broad area of study that has developed over the past 30 years. Its origin can be traced in the communication to the influence of the late 20th century feminist movement. The media systems are fundamental for development and survival of nations and cultures (Lorimer et al, 2012). This was a movement with a variety of ideologies, goals and factions. It brought issues as such as gender discrimination, equal opportunity for women in education and employment, and cultural influence. These issues were taken up in academic work across fields of study. Hence, communication researchers began to study the sex differences in communication. Early research on sex differences were biased since they used the characteristics of typical of men for setting the standards. This led to bad reputation of women in society. For example, this research would report on women’s lack of assertiveness rather than men’s aggression. However, this prompted feminist researchers to question the simplistic rooting of such differences in biology. These researchers argued that different styles of communication had different strengths and weaknesses in different contexts than to sex. They also contended that different communication styles were more linked to power and status in different contexts. Furthermore, they began to conceptualize gender as socially constituted through communication and performance. The largest proportion of feminist research is committed to hearing women speak about their own such experiences of being women, frustrations, humiliation, and subordination. There are different ways feminist researchers carry out research. Some researchers use standard surveys and gather numerical information to establish matters of extent regarding women’s position in comparison to men. At the same time, other researchers use and perform statistical computations. The techniques used in feminist research are conversations, group discussions, storytelling and observation. 4) Advertising is the structured, composed and non-personal communication of information, usually paid for and persuasive in nature, about products by identified sponsors through media (Lee & Johnson, 2005). This is now studied from a plethora of social science perspectives. This enables us to locate the complex viewpoints by organizing them along two dimensions in relation to their assumptions about their audience and level of explanation. This science is divided into four sectors namely passive individuals, passive social/cultural groups, active individuals, and Active social/cultural groups. The first sector is passive individuals. This is used by marketing academics and advertising practitioners for explaining how advertising works in this sector. Psychodynamic theories are used ion market research and critical reviews of advertising aspects. Psycholinguistics is applied to advertisements by people who take advertisements as texts that can be applied using linguistic theory. There is a very close relationship between advertising, rationality and emotions. The second sector is passive social/cultural groups. Unfortunately, most of the negative perspectives of advertising are found in this group. This is where the society is seen to be at the mercy of the power of organized capital through its vanguard weapon. Postmodernism has the connotation that consumers use the products because of their symbolic meaning portrayed in their images. The third section is active individuals. This section uses a theory called information economics. It takes a view that consumers already know what they want, and the task of advertising is simply to inform them of availability and product specifications. The last sector is active social/cultural groups. This theory is sociolinguistics. This perspective draws on speech act theory in linguistic philosophy to emphasize social action aspects of language. Post structuralism is another perspective in use here. This theory was developed from both the uses and gratifications approach from postmodernism. 5) There are three theories of audience that can help in understanding the relationship between texts and audience. These are the effects model or hypodermic model, the uses and gratifications model, and the reception theory (Rogers, 2003). The effects model states that the consumption of media texts has an effect or influence upon the audience. This effect is considered negative. The audiences are passive and powerless to prevent the audience. The next model is hypodermic model that states that the messages in media texts are passed to the audience using a powerful media. This audience cannot resist this powerful media influence. The media is viewed as a drug for the audience. The effects model contributes to Moral panics whereby the media produces violent behavior in the people that use it. The next theory is the uses and gratifications model. This model is the opposite of the effects model in the society. The audience in this model is active, uses text and is not used by it. The audience uses the text for its own gratification and pleasure. This theory focuses on how audiences use media texts. This is my preferred approach because it supports freedom of audience in rejecting any media meanings. This means that the audiences have total control of what they want in the media. This helps the audience deal with issues such as emotional satisfaction, personal identity, social identity, aggression and violence. References Grossberg, L., Wise, J, Whitney, D & Wartella, E. (2005). Media Making: Mass Media in a Popular Culture. USA: SAGE publishers. Lee, M & Johnson, M., L. (2005). Principles of Advertising: A Global Perspective. New York: Routledge. Lorimer, R., Gasher, M & Skinner, D. (2012). Mass communication in Canada. Toronto: Oxford university presss. Rogers, E., M. (2003). Diffusion of Innovations, 5th Edition. New York: Simon & Schuster. Strinati, D. (1995). An introduction to the theories of popular culture. New York: Routledge. . Read More