ROLE OF MASS MEDIA

What does the dichotomy of Base and Superstructure tell us about the role of mass media in society?

What does the dichotomy of Base and Superstructure tell us about the role of mass media in society?

Introduction

Political economy has constituted a major dimension of critical communications studies, embodying a skepticism toward business and the state and embracing a commitment to greater social equality and democracy. The application of political economy to the study of the media has had as its starting point the fact that the producers of mass media are industrial institutions, essentially driven by the logic of capitalism - the pursuit of maximum profit. The 'culture industries' are those economic institutions that employ the characteristic modes of production and organization of industrial corporations to produce and disseminate symbols in the form of cultural goods and services, generally, although not exclusively, as commodities.

Discussion

Communication involving the idea of an exchange between living under which sensations, images or concepts are passed each other, which was common to man and beast, which represents a type d communication at an emotional level, which acts as a emotional release or serving the purpose of survival of the species, is an approach which can be attached:

The communication of mental states of knowledge, which is on the basis of work and joint cooperation and underlying social wing that represents a particular culture. It is clear that the mechanisms of both are different, hence the different approaches to communication, nonverbal language, the kinessia, the gesture has represented an analysis different from other language-based modes, both phonic and written.

In the late nineteenth century have been highlighted global analysis models of society, where communication was a significant and well conformed schemes and models that influenced d questions of the twentieth century, models and diagrams that can be called "paradigms" . The development of communication studies in Europe have to join the U.S. studies advances by finding different subareas. Communication has become the central theme during the twentieth and this represented further progress in the understanding of social relations, the mass media have come to occupy a central and dominant within the society.

As for the contextualization of communication we must note that this does not happen from nothing, but is given and is offered in an environment where there is a specific organization and structure, where the relations and dealings are encoded, where power and hierarchies are structured within society, so the media participate in the political structure and power, and where they find justification for their actions. In Western democracies the media have the task of supervision, transfer of public interest. Communication is of multiple complexity in their analysis because there is no neutral gaze on reality aseptic communication, to meet border areas within the social sciences q frame the meaning and scope of communication.

For Karl Marx, the story arises from the relationship between man and nature. It is of great significance for positioning on the structure and superstructure, where communication comes directly marking the liberation or ...