Media, Knowledge and Power

Oliver Boyd-Barrett, Peter Braham, Oliver Boyd-Barrett, Peter Braham

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136116841
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Media & Communications Industry
• Index: Business

First Published in 1986. The readings reflect the current interest in the possible effects that such communications media may have upon children's studies and cognition and upon how children are likely to respond to education and educational media.

SECTION 1

COMMUNICATIONS ACROSS THE WORLD

INTRODUCTION

The term ‘mass media’ is common enough in everyday conversation, but scholars researching the media are more cautious. They hesitate over ‘mass’, with its connotations of a dreary, undifferentiated audience, and its implied presumptions about the distinctiveness and possibly the superiority of interpersonal, face-to-face communication. Scholars may argue that cultural products delivered to our homes and living rooms in press and television are manufactured to a considerable extent on the basis of very traditional face-to-face or interpersonal communications. And for all the apparent uniformity of the content, it is certain that the meanings which different individuals derive from these communications are extremely diverse. These same products form a part of daily discourse, fuelling conversation, lubricating the interleaving motions of human relationship in pairs and groups, creating and sustaining areas of shared experience, symbolism, knowledge and understanding. It is not just that the same content can deliver many different messages to many different people, but the content itself is becoming more diverse. Familiar communications media such as press, radio and television are becoming more regionalized and localized. It is true that patterns of ownership continue to reveal a high degree of concentration, and the control of a relatively small number of giant organizations is increasingly diversified across many different spheres of economic activity. But both older and newer communications technologies appear increasingly to allow for greater market specialization and interactivity between ‘publishers’ and consumers and among consumers themselves. Indeed, the term ‘user’ so common in relation to computers could appropriately be substituted across all media for the older and considerably more passive term ‘consumer’. Such a change would carry implications for ways of thinking about how people relate to media, acquire information and more generally for how they learn: that is, not as empty vessels to be filled, but as lively and often enquiring beings who bring to the media their own experience and views of life, their developed personalities, expectations, values and prejudices, needs and demands.

In their appreciation of the continuities between traditional interpersonal and so-called ‘mass’ communication, the two articles which introduce this reader share a great deal of common ground, all the more significant given the different traditions of media study which they represent. The McBride Commission report represents the opening deliberations of an international group of eminent media professionals and scholars in an international policy-oriented and politically sensitive publication. It is empirically-grounded, politically cautious, basically optimistic in its view of the potential of communications technologies for the development of a better world, with particular reference to the Third World. The quantity of communications facilities and opportunities and the uneven dispersal of these around the globe is a major concern for McBride. By contrast, the doyen of English academic media research, Raymond Williams, is more abstract, speculative and sceptical. An issue of particular concern for him is the role of commerce in influencing how the media select from and interpret the world.

Both articles recognize, however, the importance of locating the study of communications media within the full range of different modes of human communication. The McBride Commission report does so in an empirical worldwide survey of the range and pervasiveness of different communication modes and stresses their interdependence. Williams’s perspective is more historical, identifying continuities as well as discontinuities between today’s media and previous forms of social communication. He points to the study of sign systems (semiotics) as a possibly integrative influence in the development of understanding about communication, offering as it does tools of analysis which are applicable to all forms of human expression and interpretation. But he also believes there is a need for a new kind of enquiry which transcends different traditions and disciplines, and which embraces without prejudice the different facets of human communication.

Both McBride and Williams, therefore, are concerned with change: intended and unintended changes that result from the pace of development of communications technologies, and broader changes in political, economic and cultural structures to which communications media can offer a positive contribution. Both sources are clearly doubtful whether existing patterns of study in this field are adequate for the task, and are looking for radically new ways of studying communication.

1.1 Many Voices, One World

McBRIDE COMMISSION*

The spectrum of communication in contemporary society almost defies description because of the immense variety and range of its components. It includes: human capacities; simple communication tools and media serving individuals, groups and masses; complex infrastructures and systems; advanced technologies, materials and machines which collect, produce, carry, receive, store and retrieve messages; innumerable individual and institutional partners and participants in the communication world.¹

The symbols which make up messages and the means that carry them are simply two facets of one reality. Symbols, gestures, numbers, words, pictures, all are in themselves a means of communication, and the medium, be it a hand-printed page, radio or television, not only carries the message but is simultaneously another symbol of communication. Hence communication is an all-encompassing ‘global’ phenomenon, which in essence cannot be reduced to or described in terms of isolated, independent parts, each element being an integral part of the whole. But all these elements are present — obviously in different proportions and with different significance and impact — in every part of the world.

1. SIGNS AND WORDS

Since time immemorial, the human race has used primitive, simple forms of communication, which have been enhanced, extended, refined, and are still in use today in all societies despite the continuous invention of new technologies and the increasing sophistication and complexity of interaction between people. To be able to externalize their feelings and needs, individuals first used their bodies to communicate. ‘Body language’ and other non verbal languages² while being used for millenia in traditional societies for a variety of purposes, have lost none of their validity and importance today, despite their obvious limitations. Hence, messages and ideas are also transmitted in many countries by means of itinerant dance and mime groups, puppet shows and other folk media which serve not only to entertain but to influence attitudes and behaviour.

Images often preceded and precede words. But language marks an immense step forward in human communication, especially in the ability to memorize and pass on knowledge and in the expression of relatively complex conceptions. It is not, indeed, the only tool in interpersonal communication, but it is indispensable; speech still has powers which cannot be replaced either by technology or by the mass media. It is the lifeblood of innumerable networks of contact.

In communities where isolation or smallness of scale, or indeed persistent illiteracy, have encouraged the survival of tradition, speech, performance and example remain the most common, if not the only, means of transmitting information. While in industrialized countries, traditional channels for direct communication have virtually disappeared as sources of information, except in the most isolated areas, the same cannot be said for other interpersonal communication networks which include provision or exchange of information in the family or extended family, in the neighbourhood, in communities and ethnic groups, in various clubs and professional associations, and in conferences and meetings which are convened by governments, by organizations of all kinds, or by commercial enterprises.³ All these and many others provide occasions to exchange information, elucidate issues, ventilate grievances, resolve conflicts or assist in opinion-forming and decision-making on matters of common interest to individuals, groups or society as a whole. These forms of interpersonal communication are sometimes overlooked by professional observers and investigators, whose focus is narrowed predominantly to the mass media, as the purveyors of news, facts, ideas, and indeed of all vital information.

While interpersonal communication is not a primary or even major concern of this review, some of the issues it raises should not be overlooked for a number of important reasons. First, traditional forms of communication, and particularly interpersonal communication, maintain a vital importance in all parts of the world, both developing and developed, and are even expanding. Second, the majority of people in the world, particularly the rural inhabitants of developing countries, comprising as much as 60 to 70 per cent of the world’s population, continues to impart, receive and, what is more, accept messages through these channels of communication. Third, it is impossible to comprehend completely the advantages and limitations of modern media if they are treated as factors separate from the interpersonal communication, for clearly communication networks grow cumulatively, with each new form adding to but not eclipsing the older systems. On the contrary, interpersonal communication takes on a whole new significance in the face of the depersonalizing effects of modern technology and it remains an essential feature in the furtherance of democracy within societies.

2. LANGUAGES

The number of languages used in verbal communication is high, with some 3,500 identified throughout the world. However, while speech is common to all societies and writing is not, the number of written languages is much lower, with one estimate indicating not more than 500.⁴

Over the centuries, the course of history has led to steady expansion in the use of some languages. Some of these languages have a predominant place in the circulation of information, programmes and materials.⁵ It is estimated that there are at least 16 languages which are spoken by more than 50 million people: the family of Chinese languages, English, Russian, Spanish, Hindi, Portuguese, Bengali, German, Japanese, Arabic, Urdu, French, Malay-Bahasa, Italian, Teluga, Tamil.

About 1,250 languages are spoken on the African continent: some of these, such as Swahili, Wolof and Hausa, cover large areas and indeed different nations. In Europe, there are 28 official national languages. The people of south Asia use 23 principal languages. Although the Arab region is, in a certain sense, monolingual, vernacular languages there vary to some extent from classical Arabic, and Berber tongues which are distinct from Arabic are spoken in some countries of north Africa. Latin America uses two principal languages, Spanish and Portuguese, but there are hundreds of Indian languages and dialects; some of them, like Quechua in Peru and Guarani in Paraguay, being spoken by large local populations. In addition, English, French and Dutch continue to predominate in ex-colonies of the region and in the Caribbean. Many countries have a surprising number of languages: in the USSR there are 89; India recognizes 15 for official and educational use alone, with a total number of languages and dialects exceeding 1,650; for Ghana the total is 56 and Mexican Indians have more than 200. Many of these tongues have now been transcribed, but the majority have not.

The proliferation of a great number of languages and dialects had numerous historical, ethnological, religious and social reasons. But in the course of time, the creation of new nation states, coupled with hegemonistic pressures and imperialist domination over large parts of the world led frequently to linguistic modifications in many countries and the gradual disappearance of some dialects and local patois. Conversely, colonialism ensured that a few European languages were spread right across the globe. Assimilating tendencies over small and weak cultures are still continuing.

The multiplicity of languages, each the incarnation of long traditions, is an expression of the world’s cultural richness and diversity. The disappearance of a language is always a loss, and its preservation is the consequence of the struggle for a basic human right. Moreover, in the modern mass media as well as in traditional communication, the use of a variety of languages is an advantage, bringing a whole population on to equal terms of comprehension. This does not mean that there are no problems arising from multiplicity. The choice of a national ‘link language’, or the relationship between one language and another, has been a source of difficulty and conflict (in India, in Canada, in Belgium, to take only three examples). The multiplicity of languages presents obvious barriers to communication, gives rise to cultural problems, and can hamper scientific and technical development. The worldwide use of a small number of languages leads to a certain discrimination against other languages and the creation of a linguistic hierarchy; thus, most of the world’s population lacks the linguistic means to take full advantage of much of modern research and technology.⁶

This concentration of key languages might encourage the view that the problem of ‘language barriers’ is overrated, but the fact is that, beyond the native speakers of such languages and the relatively small number of bi or multilingual people, who belong mainly to narrow local elites, millions of people all over the world do indeed face an incomprehensible barrier. They are discriminated against, since currently the spread of information tends to take place in the terms, and the idiom, of the linguistically powerful.

Looking to the future, there are several possible avenues of development. Many national languages could become more widely used, particularly in print and electronic media, which at present often confine themselves to the language of the local elite. Or alternatively the rapid spread of technology could concentrate and decrease the number of languages, at least for some specific purposes. Plurilingualism is an attractive solution, probably the only realistic one in most countries, yet the diffusion of one simple, universal tongue, comprehensible and accessible to all, might also strengthen national cohesion and quickly demolish the barriers to communication between different peoples. Again, improved teaching of foreign languages and extensions of learning opportunities, particularly through use of radio and recordings, offers broad potential. All these possibilities are meaningful only if one basic principle is respected: that all languages are regarded as equal in dignity and as instruments of communication. In formulating its linguistic policy, each country has an option between various alternatives, and its de...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Foreword
• Notes on Contributors
• Editors’ Introduction
• Section 1: Communications Across the World
• Section 2: Communications and Social Power
• Section 3: Media ‘Forms’ and their Effects
• Section 4: Media Education
• Section 5: Information, Dissemination and Innovation
• Index