Lecture 4 The mass media and society

Definition of mass media
Modern systems of communication and distribution supplied by relatively small groups of cultural producers

- "late age of print" this term comes from the media theorist Marshall McLuhan.
- The role of the 'reader' - the electronic book (is it democratic?)
- the reader takes on the role of the author.

Computer Media
The way we read has changed because of hypertext and hypermedia.

Negative criticism of mass media
- Superficial, uncritical, trivial
- Viewing figures measure success
- Audience is dispersed
- Audience is disempowered
- Encourages the status quo
- Encourages apathy
- Power held by the few motivated by profit or social control
- Bland, escapist and standardised
- encourages escapism, seen as a drug which anaesthestises us

Positive criticism of the mass media
- Not all mass media is of low quality
- Social problems and injustices are discussed by the media
- Creativity can be a feature of mass media
- Transformission of high art material reaches a broader audience
- Democratic potential


Artists' use of mass media = a book by John A. Walker 'Art in the age of mass media'

Can art be autonomous? (exist on its own in a vacuum)
Should art be autonomous? (for some yes, by doing so it retains its purity and integrity)

- Roy Lichtenstein - Whaam (1963)
- Drowning girl (1963)

New media is changing the way we consume and read text and images.
Theorists of the mass media have different viewpoints seeing it either as;
a) negative and a threat
or
b) positive, pleasurable and democratic

Much 20th century art has used the mass media, often to be critical of it.
There is a serious question in art theory as to whether art should be autonomous or not.