Week7-News, Influence and Community
This week’s readings examine the processes of interpersonal and mass communication and how the two intersect and interact to transmit ideas and to change or form attitudes and behaviors which build consensus within a democratic society. Communication is both the product and the means to consensus both within interpersonal relationships and in the mass communications process. Public opinion is a byproduct of consensus, but can also be an influencer. A democratic mass society is dependent upon public opinion even if it is not stable or always reliable. Consensus in a society states Wirth, “is the capacity to understand one another and to act in concert toward common objectives and under common norms” and this should be the role of mass communication. Katz and Lazarsfeld’s research showed that the role of personal influencers is to build consensus in this manner through their communication skills.
Katz and Lazarsfeld examined how people form opinions about consumer goods and public affairs by using sociometric methods to examine the patterns of individual relationships in order to understand the interpersonal communication process. The three key communication roles or relay points of personal influencers or opinion leaders were as initiators, transmitters, and influencers. The role that the opinion leader takes on depends upon the situational needs of the group at a certain point in time, the social and also physical structure of the group, and on the group’s cultural profile. Just as personal influencers can act as both a communicator and a relay point in the network of mass communication, mass media can and does take on the roles of initiator, transmitter and influencer depending upon the situation, structure and prevailing cultural climate. The shaping and delivery of the message by the opinion leader and mass media have a complex, interactive effect in shaping consensus that is still not understood today.
Schudson makes a good point that while the decision process that goes into making political and consumer choices my differ, they are not mutually exclusive, nor is one choice of greater value than the other. There is an intermingling between the issues (public affairs) and self-interest (consumerism) and by isolating the study of the two, one can fail to get a full understanding of consensus and public opinion.
There is, as Rothebuhler points out, a lack of understanding of the concepts of mass and consensus. According to Wirth, consensus is the process of communication “that allows a society of diverse citizens to be governed liberally and not an agreement of values. Today, consensus seems to be defined as an agreement of values. For example, if you don’t support the invasion of Iraq, then you aren’t an American patriot. This essentially shuts down the “discussion, debate, negotiation and compromise” that Wirth saw as needed for consensus. Wirth’s seven-point description, saw mass as heterogeneous, yet aggregates of individual and as people who belong to many groups, but are not organized. The focus today is on what do people want, what do they think and where do their self-interests lie? Without understanding the context within which individual opinions are formed we miss the complexity of “mass” in society and communication.
The global scope of the reaction, particularly from the Muslim community, to the Danish cartoons highlights the problems of global consensus, and the underlying communications structure, that need to be understood. Although the cartoons were published in an obscure Danish newspaper in September 2005, it has only been within recent months that members of the Muslim world community reacted strongly and at time violently to the cartoon’s content. It is doubtful that many of the protestors had actually seen the cartoons, so one wonders what the communication structure of both personal influencers and mass media that’s in place which moved this information or “news” worldwide in such a way as to generate this form of social action. It demonstrates the strength of symbols and how public opinion can be based more on perception, rather than knowledge.
Katz and Lazarsfeld examined how people form opinions about consumer goods and public affairs by using sociometric methods to examine the patterns of individual relationships in order to understand the interpersonal communication process. The three key communication roles or relay points of personal influencers or opinion leaders were as initiators, transmitters, and influencers. The role that the opinion leader takes on depends upon the situational needs of the group at a certain point in time, the social and also physical structure of the group, and on the group’s cultural profile. Just as personal influencers can act as both a communicator and a relay point in the network of mass communication, mass media can and does take on the roles of initiator, transmitter and influencer depending upon the situation, structure and prevailing cultural climate. The shaping and delivery of the message by the opinion leader and mass media have a complex, interactive effect in shaping consensus that is still not understood today.
Schudson makes a good point that while the decision process that goes into making political and consumer choices my differ, they are not mutually exclusive, nor is one choice of greater value than the other. There is an intermingling between the issues (public affairs) and self-interest (consumerism) and by isolating the study of the two, one can fail to get a full understanding of consensus and public opinion.
There is, as Rothebuhler points out, a lack of understanding of the concepts of mass and consensus. According to Wirth, consensus is the process of communication “that allows a society of diverse citizens to be governed liberally and not an agreement of values. Today, consensus seems to be defined as an agreement of values. For example, if you don’t support the invasion of Iraq, then you aren’t an American patriot. This essentially shuts down the “discussion, debate, negotiation and compromise” that Wirth saw as needed for consensus. Wirth’s seven-point description, saw mass as heterogeneous, yet aggregates of individual and as people who belong to many groups, but are not organized. The focus today is on what do people want, what do they think and where do their self-interests lie? Without understanding the context within which individual opinions are formed we miss the complexity of “mass” in society and communication.
The global scope of the reaction, particularly from the Muslim community, to the Danish cartoons highlights the problems of global consensus, and the underlying communications structure, that need to be understood. Although the cartoons were published in an obscure Danish newspaper in September 2005, it has only been within recent months that members of the Muslim world community reacted strongly and at time violently to the cartoon’s content. It is doubtful that many of the protestors had actually seen the cartoons, so one wonders what the communication structure of both personal influencers and mass media that’s in place which moved this information or “news” worldwide in such a way as to generate this form of social action. It demonstrates the strength of symbols and how public opinion can be based more on perception, rather than knowledge.
posted by Vicky Hildebrandt at
5:23 PM
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