Introduction

Abstract

One of the defining characteristics in the everyday life of many societies is the presence of processes of mass communication such as television, cinema, radio and newspapers, etc. So central have these processes become to normal sources of information and entertainment that urban-industrial life might seem inconceivable without mass media. Academic discussion of the quality and characteristics of social experience has intermittently pointed to the consequences of mass communications to endeavour to explain many problems in contemporary societies. However, these theories have only been tentative because a single perspective of what mass communications mean to a society has never been agreed.¹ Questions of cultural value, attitudinal effect, financial rewards and sheer size have all seemed important, but the answers to these and to many other questions have never given the impression of mutual consistency, and have often been mutually contradictory.² Some of the confusion in perspective may be resolved if two dominant traditions are distinguished.