Mass Society, Mass Culture, and Mass Communication: The Meaning of Mass
K. Lang, and G. Lang. International Journal of Communication, (2009)
Abstract
The concept of mass goes back a long way to characterize a society that consists of people somehow connected by communication while, at the same time, also dispersed in space and essentially detached from one another. Mass has also been a pejorative for critics of modern capitalist society and its culture. In the years after World War II, this latter use of the term became the target of a broadside attack by several highly credentialed scholars, who questioned its value as an analytic tool. This paper, starting with Ferdinand Tönnies, offers a brief overview of both the origins of the concept of mass and its subsequent refinement by French, German, and American sociologists into the mid-1930s. Distinguishing between its ideological connotations and the analytic use of the term helps us to focus on the most general and persistent effects of mass communication: expanding the range of common experience and making people more responsive to distant events. This effect is magnified by the ubiquity of mass media; practically no one, not even those who scorn them, can altogether escape their influence.
%0 Journal Article
%1 lang_mass_2009
%A Lang, Kurt
%A Lang, Gladys E.
%D 2009
%J International Journal of Communication
%K france germany intellectual internalist mass-communication mass-culture-debate mass-society sociology terminology tonnies united-states
%P 998--1024
%T Mass Society, Mass Culture, and Mass Communication: The Meaning of Mass
%V 3
%X The concept of mass goes back a long way to characterize a society that consists of people somehow connected by communication while, at the same time, also dispersed in space and essentially detached from one another. Mass has also been a pejorative for critics of modern capitalist society and its culture. In the years after World War II, this latter use of the term became the target of a broadside attack by several highly credentialed scholars, who questioned its value as an analytic tool. This paper, starting with Ferdinand Tönnies, offers a brief overview of both the origins of the concept of mass and its subsequent refinement by French, German, and American sociologists into the mid-1930s. Distinguishing between its ideological connotations and the analytic use of the term helps us to focus on the most general and persistent effects of mass communication: expanding the range of common experience and making people more responsive to distant events. This effect is magnified by the ubiquity of mass media; practically no one, not even those who scorn them, can altogether escape their influence.
@article{lang_mass_2009,
abstract = {The concept of mass goes back a long way to characterize a society that consists of people somehow connected by communication while, at the same time, also dispersed in space and essentially detached from one another. Mass has also been a pejorative for critics of modern capitalist society and its culture. In the years after World War II, this latter use of the term became the target of a broadside attack by several highly credentialed scholars, who questioned its value as an analytic tool. This paper, starting with Ferdinand T{\"o}nnies, offers a brief overview of both the origins of the concept of mass and its subsequent refinement by French, German, and American sociologists into the mid-1930s. Distinguishing between its ideological connotations and the analytic use of the term helps us to focus on the most general and persistent effects of mass communication: expanding the range of common experience and making people more responsive to distant events. This effect is magnified by the ubiquity of mass media; practically no one, not even those who scorn them, can altogether escape their influence.},
added-at = {2019-08-29T01:56:31.000+0200},
author = {Lang, Kurt and Lang, Gladys E.},
biburl = {https://www.bibsonomy.org/bibtex/2c604507f99732c15e2ae1beeffe591c6/jpooley},
interhash = {7c692be918d36436f38bd7a850f4a85c},
intrahash = {c604507f99732c15e2ae1beeffe591c6},
journal = {International Journal of Communication},
keywords = {france germany intellectual internalist mass-communication mass-culture-debate mass-society sociology terminology tonnies united-states},
pages = {998--1024},
timestamp = {2019-08-29T01:56:31.000+0200},
title = {Mass {{Society}}, {{Mass Culture}}, and {{Mass Communication}}: {{The Meaning}} of {{Mass}}},
volume = 3,
year = 2009
}