$4 The Communication of Ideas    [t^u* "ftnrU,/ IMIt
The psychologist, therefore, suggests that it is possible to control vocabulary and meaning to a degree, within materials. He recognizes, fully, that though care in the use of words may minimize communication difficulties, understanding and interpretation are essentially an individual reaction. The mass effort is not the sum of the individual understandings, it is generally less. Misunderstanding of communication in even a few individuals may penalize the communion of communication for all.
VII
MASS COMMUNICATION, POPULAR TASTE AND ORGANIZED SOCIAL ACTION
BY
PAUL F, LAZARSFELD AND ROBERT K. MERTON
Problems engaging the attention of men change, and they change not at random but largely in accord with the altering demands of society and economy. If a group such as those who have written the chapters of this book had been brought together a generation or so ago, the subject for discussion would in all probability have been altogether different. Child labor, woman suffrage or old age pensions might have occupied the attention of a group such as this, but certainly not problems of the media of mass communication. As a host of recent conferences, books and articles indicate, the roleJ>f radio, print and film in society has become a problem of mterest to many and a source of concern to some. This shift in public interest appears to be the product of several social trends.
Social Concern with the Mass Media
Many are alarmed by the ubiquity and potenUfl power of the mass media. A participant in this symposium has written, for example, that "the power of radio can be compared only with the power of the atomic bomb." It is widely., felt that the mass media comprise a powerful instrument which may be used for good or for ill and that, in the absence of adequate controls, the latter possibility -is on the whole more likely. For these are the media of propaganda and Americans stand in peculiar dread of the power of propaganda. As the British observer, William Empson, recently remarked of us: "They believe in machinery more passionately than
95
x
96
The Communication of Ideas
we do; and modern propaganda is a scientific machine; so it seems to them obvious that a mere reasoning man can't stand up against it. All this produces a curiously girlish attitude toward anyone who might be doing propaganda. 'Don't let that man come near. Don't let him tempt-me, because if he does I'm sure to fall.'" / The^abiquity^of the mass media promptly leads many to an almost magicaFbelkf in their enormous power. But there is another and, probably, a more realistic basis for widespread concern with the social role of the mass media; a basis which has to do with the changing types of social control exercised by powerful interest groups in society.i Increasingly, the chief power groups, among which or-_ ganized ousiness occupies the most spectacufaT place, have cometo li3opTtechniques for manipulating mass publics through propaganda in place of more direct means of control. Industrial organizations no longer compel eight year old children to attend the machine for fourteen hours a day; they engage in elaborate programs of "public relations." They place large and impressive advertisements in the newspapers of the nation; they sponsor numerous radio programs; on the advice of public relations counsellors they organize prize ^contests, establish welfare foundations, and support worthy causes. Economic power seems to have reduced direct exploitation and turned"toa subtler type of psychological exploitation, achieved largely by disseminating propaganda through the mass media of communication.^ "
This change in the structure of social control merits thorough examination. Complex societies are subject to many different forms of organized control. Hitler, for example, seized upon the most visible and direct of these: organized violence and mass coercion. In this country, direct coercion has become minimized. If people do not adopt the beliefs a»d attitudes advocated by some power group —say, the National Association of Manufacturers—they can neither be liquidated nor placed in concentration camps. Those who would control the opinions and beliefs of our society resort less to physical force and more, to mass persuasion, 'The radio program and the institutional advertisement serve in place of intimidation and coercion. The manifest concern over the functions of the mass media is
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97
in part based upon the valid observation that these media have takenf on the job of rendering mass publics conformative to the social andx economic status quo. ) — •• ^
"ATfiird source of widespread concern with the social role of mass media is found in their assumed effects upon popular culture and the esthetic tastes of their audiencesrln The^ measure"QTaT"tEe size of these audiences has increased, it is argued, the level of esthetic taste has deteriorated. And it is feared that the mass media deliberately cater to these vulgarized tastes, thus contributing to further deterioration.
It seems probable that these constitute the three organically related elements of our great concern with the mass media of communication. Many are, first of all, fearful of the ubiquity and potential power of these media. We have suggested that tSis is something of an indiscriminate fear of an abstract bogey stemming from insecurity o£ social position and tenuously held values. Propaganda seems threatening.
There is, secondly, concern with the present effects of the mass media upon their enormous audiences, particularly "the possibility that the continuing assault of these media may lead to the unconditional surrender of critical faculties and an unthinking conform-
ism.
Finally, there is the danger that these technically advanced instruments of mass communication constitute a major avenue for the deterioration of esthetic tastes and popular cultural standards./ And we have suggested that there is substantial ground for concern over these immediate social effects of the mass media of communication.
A review of the current state of actual knowledge concerning the social role of the mass media of communication and their effects upon the contemporary American community is an ungrateful task, for certified knowledge of this kind is impressively slight. Little more can be done than to explore the nature of the problems by methods which, in the course of many decades, will ultimately provide the knowledge we seek. Although this is anything but an encouraging preamble, it provides a necessary context for assessing
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the research and tentative conclusions o£ those of us professionally concerned with the study of mass media. A reconnaissance will suggest what we know, what we need to know, and will locate the strategic points requiring further inquiry.
To search out "the effects" of mass media upon society is to set upon an-ill defin^djproblcm. It is helpful to distinguish three facets, of the problem" and to consider each in turn. Let us, then, first; inquire into what we know about the effects of the existence of these media in our society. Secondly, we must look into the effects of the particular structure of ownership and operation of the mass media in this country, a structure which differs appreciably from that found elsewhere. And, filially, we must consider that aspect of the problem which bears most directly upon policies and tactics governing the use of these media for definite social ends: our knowledge concerning the effects of the particular contents disseminated through the mass media.
The Social Role of the Machinery of Mass Media
What role can be assigned to the mass media by virtue of the fart that they exist? What are the implications of a Hollywood, a
Radio City, and a Time-Life-Fortune enterprise for our society? j
These questions can of course be discussed only in^g^o^sjy^sp^culatiye^. j
terms, since no experimentation or rigorous comparative study is y
^possible. Comparisons with other societies lacking these mass media |
would be too crude to yield decisive results and comparisons with an '(
earlier day in American society would still involve gross assertions I
rather than precise demonstrations. In such an instance, brevity is I
I [clearly indicated. And opinions should be leavened with caution. \
|/It is our tentative judgment that the social role played by the very .\
1' existence of the mass media has been commonly overestimated. What {
are the grounds for this judgment ?                 * |
It is clear that the mass media reach enormous audiences. Approx- | imately seventy million Americans attend the movies every week; our daily newspaper circulation is about forty-six million, and some thirty-four million American homes are equipped with radio, and in these homes the average American listens to the radio for about three
Communication, Taste and Social Action 99
hours a day. These are formidable figures. But they are merely supply and consumption figures, not figures registering the effect of mass media. They bear only upon what people do, not upon the social and psychological impact of the media. To know the number of hours people keep the radio turned on gives no indication of the effect upon them of what they hear. Knowledge of consumption data in the field of mass media remains far from a demonstration of their net effect upon behavior and attitude and oudook.
As was indicated a moment ago, we cannot resort to experiment by comparing contemporary American society with and without mass media. But, however tentatively, we can compare their social effect with, say, that of the automobile. It is not unlikely that the invention of the automobile and its development into a mass owned commodity has had a significantly greater effect upon society than the invention of the radio and its development into a medium of mass communication. Consider the social complexes into which the automobile has entered. Its sheer existence has exerted pressure for vastly improved roads and with these, mobility has increased enormously. The shape of metropolitan agglomerations has been significantly affected by the automobile. And, it may be submitted, the inventions which enlarge the radius of movement and action exert a greater influence upon social outlook and daily routines than inventions which provide avenues for ideas—ideas which can be avoided by withdrawal, deflected by resistance and transformed by assimilation.
Granted, for a moment, that the mass media play a comparatively minor role in shaping our society, why are they the object of so much popular concern and criticism? Why do so many become exercised by the "problems" of the radio and film and press and so few by the problems of, say, the automobile and the airplane? In addition to the sources of this concern which we have noted previously, there is an unwitting psychological basis for concern which derives from a spdo-historical context.
Many make the mass media targets for hostile criticism because they feel themselves duped^by the turn of events.
The social changes'ascribable to "reform movements" may be slow
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and slight, but they do cumulate. The surface facts are familiar enough. The sixty hour week has given way to the forty hour week. Child labor has been progressively curtailed. With all its deficiencies, free universal education has become progressively institutionalized. These and other gains register a series of reform victories. And now, people have more leisure time. They have, ostensibly, greater access to the cultural heritage. And what use do they make of this unmortgaged time so painfully acquired for them ? They listen to the radio and go to the movies. These mass media seem somehow to have cheated reformers of the fruits of their victories. The struggle for freedom for leisure and popular education and social security was carried on in the hope that, once freed of cramping shackles, people would avail themselves of major cultural \ products of our society, Shakespeare or Beethoven or perhaps Kant. Instead, they turn to Faith Baldwin or Johnny Mercer or Edgar \ Guest. i Many feel cheated of their prize. It is not unlike a young man's 1 first experience in the difficult realm of puppy love. Deeply smitten with the charms of his lady love, he saves his allowance for weeks on end and finally manages to give her a beautiful bracelet. She finds it "simply divine." So much so, that then and there she makes z date with another boy in order to display her new trinket. Our social struggles have met with a similar denouement. For generations, men fought to give people more leisure time and now they spend it with the Columbia Broadcasting System rather than with Columbia University.
However little this sense of betrayal may account for prevailing attitudes toward the mass media, it may again be noted that the ' sheer presence of these media may not affect our society so pro- I foundry as is widely supposed. j
Some Social Functions of the Mass Media
In continuing our examination of the social role which can be ascribed to the mass media by virtue of their "sheer existence," we ; temporarily abstract from the social structure in which the media find |
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their place. We do not, for example, consider the diverse effects of the mass media under varying systems of ownership and control, an important structural factor which will be discussed subsequently.
The mass media undoubtedly serve many social functions which might well become the object of sustained research. Of these functions, we have occasion tc^notice only three.
the status confeiuul function. The mass media confer status on public issues, personsj organizations and social movements.
Common experience as well as research testifies that the social standing of persons or social policies is raised when these command favorable attention in the mass media. In many quarters, for example, the support of a political candidate or a public policy by The Times is taken as significant, and this support is regarded as a distinct asset for the candidate or the policy. Why?
For some, the editorial views of The Times represent the considered judgment of a group of experts, thus calling for the respect of laymen. But this is only one element in the status conferral function of the mass media, for enhanced status accrues to those who merely receive attention in the media, quite apart from any editorial support.
The mass media bestow prestige and enhance the authority of individuals and groups by legitimizing their status. Recognition by the press or radio or magazines or newsreels testifies tiat one has arrived, that one is important enough to have been singled out from the large anonymous masses, that one's behavior and opinions are significant enough to require public notice. The operation of this status conferral function may be witnessed most vividly in the advertising pattern of testimonials to a product by "prominent people." Within wide circles of the population (thougrrnot within certain selected social strata), such testimonials not only enhance the prestige of the product but also reflect prestige on the person who provides the testimonials. They give public notice that the large and powerful world of commerce regards him as possessing sufficiently high status for his opinion to count with many people. In a word, his testimonial is a testimonial to his own status.
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The ideal, if homely, embodiment of this circular prestige-pattern ■ is to be found in the Lord Calvert series of advertisements centered on "Men of Distinction." The commercial firm and the commercialized witness to the merit of the product engage in an unending series of reciprocal pats on the back. In effect, a distinguished man congratulates a distinguished whisky which, through the manufacturer, congratulates the man of distinction on his being so distinguished as to be sought out for a testimonial to the distinction of the product. The workings of this mutual admiration society may be as non-logical as they arc effectivej(Trie audiences of mass media apparently subscribe to the circular belief: "If you really matter, you will be at the focus of mass attention and, if you are at the focus of mass attention, *, then surely you must really matter." i
This status conferral function thus enters into organized social .' action by legitimizing selected policies, persons and groups which receive the support of mass media. We shall have occasion to note the detailed operation of this function in connection with the conditions making for the maximal utilization of mass media for designated social ends. At the moment, having considered the "status conferral" function, we shall consider a second: the enforced application of socialjiormA&rough_the mass media.
J theenforcemeot otsccialNOKMs^uch catch phrases as "thepower oHhe press" (and other mass media) or "the bright glare of publicity" presumably refer to thistunctiori. The mass media may initiate organized social action by£<^osingxeondmons whichareat-variance       ■ 1 wkhjgubjicjnoralities. But it 'Seeet'not be prematurely assumed that J this pattern consistssimply in making these deviations widely known. |-We have something to learn in this connection from Malinowski's > observations among his beloved Trobriand Islanders. There, he re- [' ports, no organized social action is taken with respect to behavior [ deviant from a social nornijtunless there is public announcement \ of the deviation. This is not merely a matter of acquainting the in- \ dividuals in the group with the facts of the case. Many may have r known privately of these deviations—■e.g., incest among the Trobri- I anders, as with political or business corruption, prostitution, gambling [ among ourselves—but they will not have pressed for public action. But
Communication, Taste and Social Action ioj
once the behavioral deviations are made simultaneously public for all, this sets in train tensions between the "privately tolerable" and the "publicly acknowledgeable."
The mechanism of public exposure would seem to operate somewhat as follows. Many social norms prove inconvenient for individuals in the society. They militate against the gratification of wants and impulses. Since many find the norms burdensome, there is some measure of leniency in applying them, both to oneself and to others. Hence, the emergence of deviant behavior and private toleration of these deviations. But this can continue only so long as one is not in a situation where one must take a public stand for or against the norms. Publicity, the enforced acknowledgment by members of the group that these deviations have occurred, requires each individual to take such a stand. He must either range himself with the non-conformists, thus proclaiming his repudiation of the group norms, and thus asserting that he, too, is outside the moral framework or, regardless of his private predilections, .he must fall into line by supporting the norm. Publicity closes the gap between "private attitudes"^ and "public moraljty" Publicity exerts pressure for a single rather than a dual morality by preventing continued evasion of the issue. It calls forth public reaffirmation and (however sporadic) application of the social norm.
In a mass society, this function of public exposure is institutionalized in the mass media of communication. Press, radio and journals expose fairly well known deviations to public view, and as a rule, this exposure forces some degree of public action against what has been privately tolerated. The mass media may, for example, introduce severe strains upon "polite ethnic discrimination" by calling public attention to these practices which are at odds with the norms of non-discrimination. At times, the media may organize exposure activities into a "crusade."
The study of crusades by mass media" would go far toward answering basic questions about the relation of mass media to organized social action. It is essential to know, for example, the extent to which the crusade provides an organizational center for otherwise unorganized individuals. The crusade may operate diversely among
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the several sectors o£ the population. In some instances, its major effect may not be so much to arouse an indifferent citizenry as to alarm the culprits, leading them to extreme measures which in turn alienate the electorate. Publicity may so embarrass the malefactor as to send him into flight as* was the case, for example, with some of the chief henchmen of the Tweed Ring following exposure by The New Yor\ Times. Or the directors of corruption may fear the crusade only because of the effect they anticipate it will have upon the electorate. Thus, with a startlingly realistic appraisal of the communications behavior of his constituency, Boss Tweed peevishly remarked of the biting cartoons of Thomas Nast in Harper's Weekly: "I don't care a straw for your newspaper articles: my constituents don't know how to read, but they can't help seeing them damned pictures."1
The crusade may affect the public directly. It may focus the attention of a hitherto lethargic citizenry, grown indifferent through familiarity to prevailing corruption, upon a few, dramatically simplified, issues. As Lawrence Lowell once observed in this general connection, complexities generally inhibit mass action. Public issues must be defined in simple alternatives, in terms of black and white, to permit of organized public action. And the presentation of simple alternatives is one of the chief functions of the crusade. The crusade may involve still other mechanisms. If a municipal government is not altogether pure of heart, it is seldom wholly corrupt. Some scrupulous members of the administration and judiciary are generally intermingled with their unprincipled colleagues. The crusade may strengthen the hand of the upright elements in the government, force the hand of the indifferent and weaken the hand of the corrupt. Finally, it may well be that a successful crusade exemplifies a circular, self-sustaining p/ocess, in which the concern of the mass medium with the public interest coincides with its self-interest. The triumphant crusade may enhance the power and prestige of the mass medium, thus making'it, in turn, more formidable in later
1 James Bryce, The American Commonwealth, Volume 2. Copyright 1898 by Mac-millan and Company; 1910, J914 by The MacmiHan Company; 1920 by The Right Honorable Viscount Bryie.
Communication, Taste and Social Action J05
crusades, which, if successful, may further advance its power and prestige. . ^
Whatever the answer to these questions, mass media clearly serve to reaffirm social norms by exposing deviations from these norms to public view. Study of the particular range of norms thus reaffirmed would provide a clear index of the extent to which these media deal with peripheral or central problems of the structure of our society.
\ the^ narcotizing dysfukction.JThe functions of status conferral and of reaffirmation of social norms are evidently well recognized by the operators of mass media. Like other social and psychological mechanisms, these functions lend themselves to diverse forms of application. Knowledge of these functions is power, and power may be used for special interests or for the general interest.
A third social consequence of the mass media has gone largely unnoticed. At least, it has received little explicit comment and, apparently, has not been systematically put to use for furthering planned objectives. This may be called the narcotizing dysfunction of the mass media. It is termed <?yrfunctional rather than functional on the assumption that it is not in the interest of modern complex society to have large masses of the population politically apathetic and inert. How does this unplanned mechanism operate?
Scattered studies have shown that an increasing proportion of the time of Americans is devoted to the products of the mass media. With distinct variations in different regions and among different social strata, the outpourings of the media presumably enable the twentieth century American to "keep abreast of the world." Yet, it is suggested, this vast supply of communications may elicit only a superficial concern with the problems of society, and this superficiality often cloaks mass apathy.
Exposure to this flood of information may serve to narcotize rather than to energize the average reader or listener. As an increasing meed of time is devoted to reading and listening, a decreasing share is available for organized action. The individual reads accounts of issues and problems and may even discuss alternative lines of action. But this rather intellectualized, rather remote connection with or-
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ganized social action is not activated. The interested and informed citizen can congratulate himself on his lofty state of interest and information and neglect to see that he has abstained from decision and action. In short, he takes his secondary contact with the world of political reality, his reading and listening and thinking, as a I ,| vicarious performance. He comes to mistake knowing about prob-Iji lems of the day for doing something about them. His social conscience remains spotlessly clean. He is concerned. He is informed. And he has all sorts of ideas as to what should be done. But, after he has gotten through his dinner and after he has listened to his favored radio programs and after he has read his second newspaper of the day, it is really time for bed.
In this peculiar respect, mass communications may be included among the most respectable and efficient of social narcotics.yThey may be so fully effective as to keep the addictJrom-recognizing his own malady. ~
That the mass media have lifted the level of information of large populations is evident. Yet, quite apart from intent, increasing dosages of mass communications may be inadvertently transforming the energies of men from active participation into passive knowledge.
The occurrence of this narcotizing dysfunction can scarcely be doubted, but the extent to which it operates has yet to be determined. Research on this problem remains one of the many tasks still confronting the student of mass communications.
The Structure of Ownership and Operation
To this point we have considered the mass media quite apart from their incorporation within a particular social and economic structure. But clearly, the social effects of the media will vary as the system of ownership and control varie^Thus to consider the social effects of American mass media is "to deal only with the effects of these med^a as privately owned enterprises under profit oriented management; It is general knowledge that this circumstance is not inherent in the technological nature of the mass media. In England, for ex-
Communication, Taste and Social Action joy
ample, to say nothing of Russia, the radio is to all intents and purposes owned, controlled and operated by government.
^The structure of control is altogether different in this country.
Qts salient characteristic stems from the fact that except for movies and books, it is not the magazine reader nor the radio listener nor, in large part, the reader of newspapers who supports the enterprise, but the advertiser. Big business finances the production and distribution of mass media. And, all intent aside, he who pays the piper generally calls the tune3
Social Conformism
CSince the mass media are supported by great business concerns geared into the current social and economic system, the media contribute to the maintenance of that system. This contribution is not found merely in the effective advertisement of the sponsor's product. It arises, rather, from the typical presence in magazine stories, radio i programs and newspaper columns of some element of confirmation, :/ some element of approval of the present structure of society^And this continuing reaffirmation underscores the duty to accept.
To the extent that the media of mass communication have had an influence upon their audiences, it has stemmed not only from what is said, but more significantly from what is not said. For these media i/; not only continue to affirm the status quo but, in the same measure, ]'■ they fail to raise essential questions about the structure of society. Hence by leading toward conformism and by providing little basis for a critical appraisal of society, the commercially sponsored mass media indirectly but effectively restrain the cogent development of a genuinely critical outlook.
This is not to ignore the occasionally critical journal article or radio program. But these exceptions are so few that they are lost in the overwhelming flood of conformist materials. The editor of this volume, for example, has been broadcasting a weekly program in which he critically and rationally appraises social problems in general and the institution of radio in particular. But these fifteen minutes in which Mr. Bryson addresses himself to such questions
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over one network constitute an infinitesimally small drop in the weekly flood of materials from four major networks, from five hundred and seventy or so unaffiliated stations, from hundreds of magazines and from Hollywood.
Since our commercially sponsored mass media promote a largely unthinking allegiance to our social structure, they cannot be relied upon to work for changes, even minor changes, in that structure. It is possible to list some developments to the contrary, but upon close inspection they prove illusory. A community group, such as the PTA, may request the producer of a radio serial to inject the theme of tolerant race attitudes into the program. Should the producer feel that this theme is safe, that it will not antagonize any substantial part of his audience, he may agree, but at the first indication that it is a dangerous theme which may alienate potential consumers, he will refuse, or will soon abandon the experiment. Social objectives are consistently surrendered by commercialized media when they clash with economic gains. Minor tokens of "progressive" views are of slight importance since they are included only by grace of the sponsors and only on the condition that they be sufficiently acceptable as not to alienate any appreciable part of the audience. Economic pressure makes for conformism by omission of sensitive issues. * _
Impact Upon Popular Taste
Since the largest part of our radio, movies, magazines and a considerable part of our books and newspapers are devoted to "entertainment," this clearly requires us to consider the impact of the mass media upon popular taste.^
Were we to ask the average American with some pretension to literary or esthetic cultivation if mass communications have had any effect upon popular taste?'he would doubtlessly answer with a resounding affirmative. Andonore, citing abundant instances, he would insist that esthetic and intellectual tastes have been depraved by the flow of trivial formula products from printing presses, radio stations and movie studios. The columns of criticism abound with these complaints.
In one sense, this requires no further discussion. There can be no
Communication, Taste and Social Action log
doubt that the women who are daily entranced for three or four hours by some twelve consecutive "soap operas," all cut to the same dismal pattern, exhibit an appalling lack of esthetic judgment. Nor is this impression altered by the contents of pulp and slick magazines, or by the depressing abundance of formula motion pictures replete with hero, heroine and villain moving through a contrived atmosphere of sex, sin and success.
Yet unless we locate these patterns in historical and sociological terms, we may find ourselves confusedly engaged in condemning without understanding, in criticism which is sound but largely irrelevant. What is the historical status of this notoriously low. level of popular taste? Is it the poor remains of standards which were once significantly higher, a relatively new birth in the world of values, largely unrelated to the higher standards from which it has allegedly fallen, or a poor substitute blocking the way to the development of superior standards and the expression of high esthetic purpose?
If esthetic tastes are to be considered in their social setting, we must recognize that the effective audience for the arts has become historically transformed. Some centuries back, this audience was largely confined to a selected aristocratic elite. Relatively few were literate, And-very-few possessed-the-means to huy books, attend theaters and travel to the urban centers of the arts. Not more than a slight fraction, possibly not more than one or two per cent, of the population composed the effective audience for the arts. These happy few cultivated their esthetic tastes, and their selective demand left its mark in the form of relatively high artistic standards.
With the widesweeping spread of popular education and with the emergence of the new technologies of mass communication, there developed an enormously enlarged market for the arts. Some forms of music, drama and literature now reach virtually everyone in our society. This is why, of course, we speak of mass media and of mass art. And the great audiences for the mass media, though in the main literate, are not highly cultivated. About half the population, in fact, have halted their formal education upon leaving gram-\mar school.
With the rise of popular education, there has occurred a seeming
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decline of popular taste. Large numbers of people have acquired what might be termed "formal literacy," that is to say, a capacity to read, to grasp crude and Superficial meanings, and a correlative incapacity for full understanding of what they read,2 There has de-(l veloped, in short, a marked gap between literacy and comprehen-jj\ sion. People read more but understand less. More people read but j proportionately fewer critically assimilate what they read.
Our formulation of the problem should now be plain. It is misleading to speak simply of the decline of esthetic tastes. Mass audiences probably include a larger number of persons with cultivated esthetic standards, but these are swallowed up by the large masses who constitute the new and untutored audience for the arts. Whereas yesterday the elite constituted virtually the whole of the audience, they are today a minute fraction of the whole. In consequence, the average level of esthetic standards and tastes of audiences has been depressed, although the tastes of some sectors of the population - have undoubtedly been raised and the total number of people exposed to communication contents has been vastly increased.
But this analysis does not directly answer the question of the effects of the mass media upon public taste, a question which is as complex as it is unexplored. The answer can come only from disciplined research. One would want to know, for example, whether mass media have robbed the intellectual and artistic elite of the art forms which might otherwise have been accessible to them. And this involves inquiry into the pressure exerted by the mass audience upon creative individuals to cater to mass tastes. Literary hacks have ex-
2 Ibid., Part IV, Chapter LXXX, James Bryct perceived this with characteristic clarity: "That the education of the masses is nevertheless a superficial education goes without saying. It is sufficient to enable thjjra to think they know something about the great problems of politics; insufficient to show them how little they know. The public elementary school gives everybody the £ey to knowledge in making reading and writing familiar, but it has not rime to teach him how to use the key, whose use is in fact, by the pressure of daily work, almost confined to the newspaper and the magazine. So we may say that if the political education of the average American voter be compared with that of the average voter in Europe, it stands high; but if it be compared with the functions which the theory of the American government lays on him, which its spirit implies, which the methods of its party organization assume, its inadequacy is manifest." Mutalis mutandu, the same may be said of the gap between the theory of "superior" cultural content in the mass media and the current levels of popular education.
Communication, Taste and Social Action in
isted in every age. But it would be important to learn if the electrification of the arts supplies power for a significantly greater proportion of dim literary lights. And, above all, it would be essential to determine if mass media and mass tastes are necessarily linked in a vicious circle of deteriorating standards or if appropriate action on the part of the directors of mass media could initiate a virtuous circle of cumulatively improving tastes among their audiences. More concretely, are the operators of commercialized mass media caught up in a situation in which they cannot, whatever their private preferences, radically raise the esthetic standards of their products?
In passing, it should be noted that much remains to be learned concerning standards appropriate for mass art. It is possible that standards for art forms produced by a small band of creative talents for a small and selective audience are not applicable to art forms produced by a gigantic industry for the population at large. The beginnings of investigation on this problem are sufficiently suggestive to warrant further study.3
Sporadic and consequently inconclusive experiments in the raising of standards have met with profound resistance from mass audiences. On occasion, radio stations and networks have attempted to supplant a soap opera with a program of classical music, or formula comedy skits with discussions of public issues. In general, the people supposed to benefit by this reformation of program have simply refused to be benefited. They cease listening. The audience dwindles. Researches have shown, for example, that radio programs of classical music tend to preserve rather than to create interest in classical music and that newly emerging interests are typically superficial. Most listeners to these programs have previously acquired an interest in classical music; the few whose interest is initiated by the programs are caught up by melodic compositions and come.to think of classical music exclusively in terms of Tschaikowsky or Rimsky-Korsakow or Dvorak.
Proposed solutions to these problems are more likely to be born of faith than knowledge. The improvement of mass tastes through the improvement of mass art products is not as simple a matter as
» Cf. Chapter XVI.
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we should like to believe. It is possible, of course, that a conclusive effort has not been made. By a triumph of imagination over the current organization of mass media, one can conceive a rigorous censorship over all media, such that nothing was allowed in print or on the air or in the films save "the best that has, been thought and said in the world " Whether a radical change in the supply of mass art would in due course reshape the tastes of mass audiences must remain a matter of speculation. Decades of experimentation and research are needed. At present, we know conspicuously little about the methods of improving esthetic tastes and we know that some of the suggested methods are ineffectual. We have a rich knowledge of failures. Should this discussion be reopened in 1976, we may, perhaps, report with equal confidence our knowledge of positive achievements.       r> ■ >
At this point, we may pause to glance at the road we have traveled. By way of introduction, we considered the seeming sources of widespread concern with the place of mass media in our society. Thereafter, we first examined the social role ascribable to the sheer existence of the mass media and concluded that this may have been exaggerated. In this connection, however, we noted several consequences of the existence of mass media: their status conferral function, their function in inducing the application of social norms and their narcotizing dysfunction. Secondly, we indicated the constraints placed by a structure i of commercialized ownership and control upon the mass media as :  agencies of social criticisra-and as carriers of high esthetic standards.
We turn now to the/toird iand last aspect of the social role of the rnaiSTnTEdiarmTpdslsIB^ utilizing them for moving toward designated types of social objectives.
3J     Propaganda for Social Objectives
This final question is perhaps of more direct interest to you than the other questions we have discussed. It represents something of a challenge to us since it provides the means of resoh^jhe_ap.riarj;rit^-paradox to which wjjs£erted.preyiQ.usly_:.th.e seeming paradox arising -from-th^ existence^ of l}ie
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mass media has been exaggerated and the multiple indications that j^media do exwtjmfluenccsupon ^cjr audience^.
What are the conditions for the effective use of mass media for what might be called "propaganda for social objectives"—the promotion, let us say, of non-discriminatory race relations, or of educational reforms, or of positive attitudes toward organized labor ? Research indicates that, at least, one or more of three conditions must be satisfied if this propaganda is to prove effective. These conditions■ may be briefly designated as (1) monopolization-^) canalization rather than change of basic values and £3) supplementary face to face contact. Each of these conditions merits some discussion.
I ^Monopolization^
This situation obtains when there is Jittle01no> opposition in the mass media to the diffusion of values, policies or public images. That is to say, monopolization of the mass media occurs in the absence of counjerjjropag-anda,. ^ ' /   ' '•
In this restricted sense, monopolization of the mass media is found in diverse circumstances. It is, of course, indigenous to the political structure of authoritarian society, where access to the media of communication Is wholly closed to those who oppose the official ideology. The evidence suggests that this monopoly played some part in enabling the Nazis to maintain their control of the German people.
But this same situation is approximated in other social systems. During the war, for example, our government utilized the radio, with some success, to promote and to maintain identification with the war effort. The effectiveness of these moralejjujlding efforts was in large measure due to the virtually complete absence of counter propaganda.
Similar situations arise in the world of commercialized propaganda. The mass media create popular idols. The public images of the radio performer, Kate Smith, for example, picture her as a woman with unparalleled understanding of other American women, deeply sympathetic with ordinary men and women, a spiritual guide and mentor, a patriot whose views on public affairs should be taken seriously. Linked with the cardinal American virtues, the public images of Kate Smith
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are at no point subject to a counter propaganda. Not that she has no competitors in the market of radio advertising. But there are none who set themselves systematically to question what she has said. In consequence, an unmarried radio entertainer with an annual income in six figures may be visualized by millions of American women as a hard working mother who knows the recipe for managing life on fifteen hundred a year.
This image of a popular idol would have far less currency were it subjected to counter propaganda. Such neutralization occurs, for example, as a result of preelection campaigns by Republicans and Democrats. By and large, as a recent study has shown, the propaganda issued by each of these parties neutralizes the effect of the other's propaganda. Were both parties to forego their campaigning through the mass media entirely, it is altogether likely that the net effect would be to reproduce the present distribution of votes.
This general pattern has been described by Kenneth Burke in his Attitudes Toward History ". . . businessmen compete with one another by trying to praise their own commodity more persuasively than their rivals, whereas politicians compete by slandering the opposition, When you add it all up, you get a grand total of absolute praise for business and grand total of absolute slander for politics."
- To the extent that opposing political propaganda in the mass media are balanced, the net effect is negligible. The virtual monopolization of the media for given social objectives, however, will produce discernible.effects upon audiences.
Canalization
xBrcyailihg beliefs in the enormous power of mass communications appear to stem from successful cases of monopolistic propaganda or from advertising. But the leap from the efficacy of advertising to the assumed efficacy of propaganda aimed at deeprooted attitudes and ego involved behavior is as unwarranted as it is dangerous. Advertising is typically directed toward the canalizing of preexisting beliavior pattefnsor attitndrarlt^seldom seelS to instil nevrattltudes-or to create '^ignificamly~new behavior patterns, "Advertising pays" because it generally deals with a simple psychological situation. For Americans
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who have been socialized in the use of a toothbrush, it makes relatively little difference which brand of toothbrush they use. Once the gross pattern of behavior or the generic attitude has been established, it can be canalized in one direction or another. Resistance is slight. But mass propaganda typically meets a more complex situation. It may seek objectives which are at odds with deeplying attitudes. It may seek to reshape rather than to canalize' current systems of values. And the successes of advertising may only highlight the failures of propaganda, "Much of the current propaganda yhich is aimed at abolishing deep-seated ethnic and racial prejudices, for example, seems to have bad little effectiveness.
Media of mass communication, then, have been effectively used to canalize basic attitudes but; there is little evidence of their having served to change these attitudes.
/'Supplementation ,)
Mass j>rcipagahda which is neither monopolistic nor canalizing in character may, nonetheless, prove effective if it meets a third condi-tionjjugpjementation throughjaoe^ojac^conta^.
A case in pointw^Hlhlstrate the interplay~between mass media and face to face influences. The seeming propagandists success achieved some years ago by Father Coughlinxdoes not appear, upon inspection, to have resulted primarily from the propaganda content of his radio talks. It was, rather, the product of these centralized propaganda talks and widespread local organizations which arranged for their members, to listen to him, followed by discussions among themselves concerning the social views he had expressed. This combination of a central supply of propaganda (Coughlin's addresses on a nationwide network), the coordinated distribution of newspapers and pamphlets and locally organized face to face discussions among relatively small groups—this complex of reciprocal reinforcement by mass media and personal relations proved spectacularly successful.
Students of mass movements have come to repudiate the view that mass propaganda in and of itself creates or maintains the movement. Nazism did not attain its brief moment of hegemony by capturing the mass media of communication. The media flayed an ancillary .role,
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supplementing the use of organized violence, organized distribution of rewards for conformity and organized centers of local indoctrination. The Soviet Union has^lso made large and impressive use of mass media for indoctrinating enormous populations with appropriate ideologies. But the organizers of indoctrination saw to it that the mass media did not operate alone. "Red corners," "reading huts" and "listening stations" comprised meeting places in which groups of citizens were exposed to the mass media in common. The fifty-five thousand reading rooms and clubs which had come into being by 1933 enabled the local ideological elite to talk over with rank and file readers the content of what they read. The relative scarcity of radios in private homes again made for group listening and group discussions of what had been heard.
In these instances, the machinery of mass persuasion included face to face contact in local organizations as an adjunct to the mass media. The privatized individual response to the materials presented through the channels of mass communication was considered inadequate for transforming exposure to propaganda into effectiveness of propaganda. In 3 society such as our own, where the pattern of bureaucratization has not yet become so pervasive or, at least, not so clearly crystallized, it has likewise been found that mass media prove most effective in conjunction with local centers of organized face to face contact.
Several factors contribute to the enhanced effectiveness of this joining of mass media and^iř^ct^personal-contact. Most clearly, the local discussions serve_to|reinforce the content of mass propaganda. Such mutual confirmation^produc-es^a "clinching effect." Secondly, the central media lessen the task of thejocal organizer, and the personnel requíreníentš fBr^ucfsubalterns need norbr as rigorous in a popular movement. The subalterns need not set forth the propaganda content for themselves, but need only pilot potential^ converts to the' radio where the doctrine is being expounded. Thirdly;, the appearance of a representative of the movement on a nationwide network, or his mention in the national press, serves to symbolize die legitimacy and significance of the movement. It is no powerless,"lhconsequential enterprise. The mass media, as we have seen, confer status. And the
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status of the national movement reflects back on the status o£the local cells, thus consolidating the tentative decisions of its membersJn this interlocking arrangement, the local organizer ensures an audience for the national speaker and the national speaker validates the status of the local organizer.
This brief summary of the situations in which the mass media achieve their maximum propaganda effect may resolve the seeming contradiction which arose at the outset of our discussion. The mass media prove most effective when they operate in a situation of victual "psychological monopoly," or when the objective is one of canaliking rather than modifying basic attitudes or when they operate in conjunction with face to face contacts.
But these three conditions are rarely satisfied conjointly in propaganda for social objectives. To the degree that monopolization of attention is rare,ppposmgjgr^ajgnjd^
And, by and large^lSasic social issues involve more than a mere canalizing of preexistent basic attitudes; they call, rather, for substantial changes in attitude and behavior. Finally, for the most obvious of reasons, the close collaboration of mass media and locally organized centers for face to face contact has seldom been achieved by groups striving for planned social change. Such programs are expensive. And it is precisely these groups which seldom have the large resources needed for these expensive programs. The forward looking groups
f at the edges of the power structure do not ordinarily have the large financial means of the contented groups at the center.
K    As a result of this threefold situation, the presratrol^^raass-media " is largely confined to peripheral social concerns and the media dojiot rahlblrthe^egfte^f s^^ to them.
ByThTTamT tokTnf ^ °£ business ownership and control of the mass media, they haveserved to cement the structure of our society. Organized business does ap-
''^^a^a^iRuai "psydwlogicalln^ of the mass media. Radio commercials and newspaper advertisements are, of course, premised on a system which has been termed free enterprise. Moreover, the world of commerce is primarily concerned with canalizing rather than radically changing basic attitudes; it seeks only to create preferences
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for one rather than another brand of product. Face to face contacts with those who have been socialized in our culture serve primarily to reinforce the prevailing culture patterns. — Thus, the very conditions which make for the maximum effectiveness of the mass media of communication operate toward the maintenance of the going social and cultural structure rather than toward its change.
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