Essay on the Uses and Misuses of Media in Modern Society

As individual, political and press freedom increases, social conflict also increases and as freedom diminishes, conflict decreases. Underdeveloped or traditional societies have very little conflict; transitional and early modern societies have the most, and late modern societies have almost none. The social conflict cycle, is therefore, highly correlated to the general political cycle.

Traditional Society:

Conflict (friction) is mainly within the autocratic or elite leader­ship group; communication, then, is of a personal nature, designed to inform the active agents in governmental, military and institutional hierarchies, and to stabilize society. Since there are no true mass media designed to bring the people into a sharing of policy, conflict exists principally among competing elite persons who might be competing for power.

Communication channels are personal and informal and are used mainly to develop a viable and stable political system by easing tensions and supporting infant institutions. Communication’s main aim is to eliminate conflict and bring social stability.

Transitional Society:

In this more highly developed society (stage of development), there is likelihood of considerable political power conflict, class conflict, party conflict and institutional conflict. Communication becomes less supportive and monolithic and increasingly becomes more competitive, ideological and pluralistic. Communication is considered a political weapon or tool-a way to gain power for some and dissipate competing and conflicting power for others.

Mass media are put to use not simply for solidifying and harmonizing the society, but as propaganda (change) agents-internally and externally. Communication’s main function is to help in political conflict as means for gaining party, group or personal power.

In the later phase of this stage, libertarianism develops and the media units themselves have maximum self-determinism. Competition and pluralism grows. Government’s control decreases, individual freedom expands and governmental democracy dominates. The mass media spread their general information to medium-sized and large populations.

Modern Society and the Media:

Actually there are two main phases of development in a modern society-a kind of early phase where individual and media freedom is still extolled; where ideological conflict among factions, classes and parties is widespread; where the mass media increase dissonance and provide a catalyst for change and a pluralism of news and views to all citizens.

Then there is a later phase flowing into authoritarianism and finally totalitarianism where conflict is discouraged (or banned) and what little there may be is among political factions and strong leaders and where mass media are mainly used for internal social control and external propaganda. The overall purpose of the media is to stabilize and direct society and to propagandize other societies.

In a traditional society authoritarianism is considered not only most expedient but most rational. The general assumption is that people are unable to rule themselves in a traditional society. And, the elite are not anxious to encourage them through mass communication-at least not until the complex foundation of nation­hood is worked out by the ruling autocracy.

Most of these early leaders are convinced that the people (the masses) want and expect strong rule imposed from the top and these leaders are determined to give it to them. The Power Structure elite, therefore, decide what will be communicated and just how fast lines of communication will be opened to wider and wider segments of the population.

The elite of the Power Structure, then, at this early stage deter­mine the nature of-as well as the quality and quantity of-the communication media. Therefore, if anything determines or causes national development at this stage, it is the leadership elite-using informal and specialized media.

So it may be said that media in new nations are creatures of a small elite group and develop very slowly and in accordance with careful planning by the elite. As the media become massive, the nation is passing from the traditional to the transitional stage.

Then, as the media pass through a mass-oriented stage into a more pluralistic or specialized stage, the nation emerges from the upper reaches of the transititional developmental stage into the final or modern stage.

Media in an Affluent Society:

As the society becomes more affluent, chances increase for its general progress into new philosophical frontiers of democracy and press libertarianism. Growth and decline of societal prosperity is closely related to democracy and freedom. Huxley makes this point when he says that liberalism flourishes in an atmosphere of prosperity and declining prosperity makes it necessary for the government to intervene ever more frequently and drastically in the affairs of its subjects.

A very important factor in the transitional society is the natural pull toward democracy and libertarianism. Another characteristic of this society is that media tend to be general or massive rather than specialized and elitistic, although some elite media persist and are supplemented by specialized media reaching segments of the general public.

In the early and middle phases of this transitional stage, circula­tions of print media are still rather small and lag behind rising literacy. This is largely due to the heritage of elitism and government control which has carried over from the traditional stage. It appears that newspapers, free of controls, can expand and grow much faster than those under government restrictions. Tarzie Vittachi, a noted Indian journalist, is prone to agree. He writes:

“The failure of the newspapers of India and Ceylon to keep pace with the growth of literacy must, in substantial measure, be attributed to state controls. Indian newspaper publishers as well as working journalists have repeatedly demanded the liberalization of government controls on the import of newsprint and machinery for expansion of the press.”

In the later phases of modern society, the tendencies above continue until the growing authoritarianism passes into totalitarian­ism; partial governmental interference in media affairs becomes total interference; collectivist or statistic objectives completely eliminate individual or personal objectives; conflict or social dissonance disappears; media pluralism fades away in the face of State control and domination; and a variety of concepts about responsibility to society are replaced by a single concept of social responsibility.

National Development Theory:

When the extreme phase of the modern stage is reached, national development has, in many respects, come full circle; from authoritarianism through libertarianism and back to authoritarianism. It is true that now the emphasis is on the total society-on the masses-whereas in the autocratic days of the traditional society the emphasis was on the few leaders of the elite. But individual freedom, press self-determinism, competition, ideological conflict and closed aspects of the modern society are about back to where they were in the autocratic traditional society.

Collectivist Thinking and the Media:

As societies grow and get more complex, it is natural for collectivist thinking to dominate over individualistic thinking. This gives a kind of utilitarian rationale for statistic control. Social stabi­lity and harmony are increasingly glorified and individual deviation is increasingly vilified.

The basic fact of social growth and com­plexity, in a very real way, tells adversely on the press-as well as individual-freedom. This drift toward conformity and control cannot really be stopped, it can only be delayed.

A country’s political system (stemming from the political ideology) is obviously related to the direction and speed of a country’s total national development. If this assumption be true, then media national development join in a kind of symbiotic relation­ship of a complex nature.

It is this symbiotic relationship that has been consuming more and more of the time and effort of researchers and theorists in the related fields of journalism, sociology and political science since about the middle of this century.

All kinds of questions are raised pertaining to the relationship between political ideology and communication system, between politics and national development, and between communication and national development.