Mass Communication: Some Redefinitional Notes...Lorimer / Mass Communication: Some Redefinitional...

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Canadian Journal of Communication, Vol 27 (2002) 63-72©2002 Canadian Journal of Communication Corporation

Mass Communication: Some Redefinitional Notes

Rowland LorimerSimon Fraser University

Abstract: This paper offers a new definition of mass communication, one thatembraces the Internet and its capacity to allow communication between individ-uals on a mass scale; decentralized broadcasting by means of the Web; and thetraditional, centralized media of mass communication such as broadcasting andnewspapers. It argues that such a redefinition affirms public access and relegatescentralized broadcasting to a more appropriate, particular type of mass commu-nication. It also discusses other redefinitional literature that focuses on the mass/interpersonal communication dichotomy. The paper is intended both to redefineand to encourage discussion of the significance of changing, modern communi-cation technology.

Résumé : Cet article propose une nouvelle définition de la communication demasse qui inclut : Internet et sa capacité d’assurer la communication entre indi-vidus à une échelle de masse; la radiodiffusion décentralisée que permet le Web;et les médias centralisés traditionnels de la communication de masse comme laradiodiffusion et les journaux. L’article soutient qu’une telle redéfinition permetde mettre de l’avant l’idée d’accès du public et relègue la radiodiffusion centra-lisée à un type particulier de communication de masse, ce qui semble plus appro-prié. Il discute aussi d’autres écrits proposant des redéfinitions portant sur ladichotomie « communication de masse/communication interpersonnelle ». Lebut de l’article est à la fois de redéfinir la signification de technologies de com-munication modernes et changeantes et d’encourager la discussion de cette signi-fication.

IntroductionThis short definitional paper is written in an attempt to engage others in the dis-cussion and consideration of the evolution of our communication system and howwe might best conceptualize it. In the third and fourth editions of Mass Commu-nication in Canada, Lorimer & McNulty (1996) and then Lorimer & Gasher(2001) dealt with the evolution of the Internet by reviving an old term, public com-munication. They spoke of the Internet as an extension of public access to world-wide communication technologies such as the postal system, telephones, and

Rowland Lorimer is a Professor in the School of Communication, and Director of the CanadianCentre for Studies in Publishing at Simon Fraser University, 515 West Hastings Street, Vancouver, BCV6B 5K3. He is publisher and an editor emeritus of the Canadian Journal of Communication. E-mail:[email protected]

64 Canadian Journal of Communication, Vol. 27 (1)

telecommunication. The intent was to draw attention to the Internet as an exten-sion of a certain organization of communication technologies rather than abrand-new, revolutionary technology that we had never seen before and which wasgoing to change democracy fundamentally (as the rhetoric of the day suggested).For the developmental stage of the Internet at that juncture, the dichotomy of massand public communication sufficed. However, with the expansion of the capaci-ties of World Wide Web technologies, and specifically the ability of anyone tobroadcast by means of a Web site to the whole world, such a dichotomy no longerworks. The redefinition of mass communication presented in this paper, within asocial model of communication itself that conceptually embraces the Internet,seems a much more useful way to proceed.

The meaning of massThe Concise Oxford Dictionary (9th ed.) offers a variety of meanings for the nounmass. Included among them are: “a coherent body of matter of indefiniteshape . . . a dense aggregation of objects . . . a large number or amount . . . anunbroken expanse . . . covered or abounding in . . . a main portion . . . themajority . . . (in pl.) the ordinary people . . . affecting large numbers of people orthings; large-scale” (Thompson, 1993, p. 838). The purpose of including so manydefinitions is to point out that, moving into semiotics for a moment, the sign massis complex and extensive, truly polysemic. And extensive as the definitions ofmass are, The Concise Oxford does not wholly recognize the use of “mass” bysocial theorists. The closest it comes is to provide an example of large-scale:“(mass audience; mass action; mass murder)” (p. 838).

McQuail (1983, 1987, 1994), in each of his introductions to Mass Communi-cation, and Tim O’Sullivan and his colleagues, writing in 1983 in Key Concepts inCommunication, note what they term mass society theory of the early twentiethcentury. This model of industrialist/capitalist societies portrayed them as com-posed of elites (capitalist owners, politicians, the clergy, landowners, artists, intel-lectuals) and workers,

a vast work-force of atomized, isolated individuals without traditional bonds oflocality or kinship, who were alienated from their labour by its repetitive,unskilled tendencies and by their subjection to the vagaries of the market. Suchindividuals were entirely at the mercy of (i) totalitarian ideologies and propa-ganda; [and] (ii) influence by the mass media (comprising, in this period, theemergent cinema and radio. (O’ Sullivan, Hartley, Saunders, & Fiske, p. 131)

No mention is made of Marx or the Frankfurt School but, presumably, theauthors had these theorists in mind when they were writing. O’Sullivan, Hartley,Saunders, & Fiske point out that “Mass society theory has been refuted by histor-ical evidence” (p. 131) but that the concept of the alienated majority of society hassurvived. It appears to have survived the almost 20 years since O’Sullivan and hiscolleagues’ discussion. The moral force of such a view—as an aberration of suchvalues as altruism and a sense of belonging— seems to have invested itself inmuch social commentary on globalization.

Lorimer / Mass Communication: Some Redefinitional Notes 65

However, as The Concise Oxford attests, one need not imbue the word masswith a sense of alienation or totalitarian. It can indeed mean, simply, large-scale.This is how it is meant in this paper.

Communication: A mathematical and a social definitionIn 1949, Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver proposed a mathematical model ofcommunication that makes reference to the basic organization of communicationstechnology. In this model, seen in Figure 1, a person, the encoder, formulates amessage by, for example, putting an idea into words. Words are symbols for anidea, for example the word chair represents the object chair. The person (ordevice) receiving the message, the decoder, unravels the signals and, on the basisof the symbols sent, formulates meaningful content. In this case the decoderwould formulate an idea of the object “chair,” which has been coded into speechor writing. (The nature of the idea so formulated by both encoder and decoder, bythe way, is complex, not simple.) The channel is the medium through which themessage is conducted, for example a human voice in air. The decoder may then letthe encoder know that she or he has understood the message (through the sameprocess, sending a message back). This might be done by means of a simplenon-verbal nod of the head and a smile. Or the decoder might carry on the dis-course, taking it in a new direction, for example, “Which chair?” These responsesare called feedback. Any interference in the transmission of the intended messageis referred to as noise. Noise may be loud background noise that makes it difficultto hear, a heavy unfamiliar accent, the snow on a television screen, static on theradio, a misplaced paragraph in a newspaper, or the imperfect encoding intowords of the idea that the encoder has in his or her mind.

Figure 1: Shannon and Weaver’s Mathematical Model of Communication (1949)


Shannon and Weaver’s (1949) model works well for engineers who speak interms of fidelity and message transmission. However, it works less well for soci-ologists and others concerned with the social nature of communication.

While many involved with the social nature of communication have movedon from Shannon & Weaver’s (1949) model, there does not yet exist a commonlyaccepted standard social model of communication. Lorimer & Gasher (2001)offer such a social model of communication, but it has not been taken up by theCanadian, let alone the international, community of communication scholars. Themodel is shown below as Figure 2. It is designed to emphasize social variables.The social context within which message formulation takes place is termed the“encoding envelope.” At the other end, the “decoding envelope” represents thecontext of ideas and understandings that the decoder brings to deciphering of theencoded message. (The nature of these envelopes of understanding and meaningexchange is the stuff of semiotics, as well as of discourse analysis, and other the-ories of meaning generation and communicative interaction.)

In between the encoding and decoding process, the model turns away fromthe transmission channel and the distortion that noise introduces and focuses onthe transformation of any message that any medium (or channel) introduces. Atone level, to put an idea into words is not the same as painting a picture in anattempt to communicate the same idea. At another level, a news story on televi-sion is not the same as a newspaper write-up of the same story. Similarly, a noveldiffers from its movie adaptation. In fact, talking to a child, a friend, or a person ina position of authority transforms both the content of the message and the choiceof media as well as the manner in which the chosen media are used. In encoding,the envelope of activities the person doing the encoding engages in includestaking into account the physical and social context as well as the person for whomthe message is intended. In transmitting, the media transform the message inencouraging a certain structure in the encoding process, and they further trans-form it by making certain elements predominant for decoding. Television empha-sizes the picture. Writing emphasizes linearity and logic.

Figure 2: A Social Model of Communication


What can we take from this model to bring forward a social definition ofcommunication? Viewed from a social perspective, communication is the processby which a message (content) (meaning) is encoded, transmitted, and decoded andthe manner in which a message (content) (meaning) is transformed by thatthree-part process.

Mass communicationIf we were to carry forward the above (social) definition of communicationtogether with the definition of mass as large-scale, we would see mass communi-cation as, simply, communication on a large or mass scale, in other words, a lot ofmessages being encoded, sent, and decoded. Some of mass communication isexactly that—a lot of people talking on the telephone, sending and receivinge-mail, writing and receiving letters. Interestingly, however, until very recently theaccepted meaning of the term mass communication did not describe mass com-munication as communication taking place on a mass scale. What was, and still is,more often termed mass communication is the communication that happens bymeans of movies, large daily newspapers, and broadcasting (that is, the creationand mass distribution of information and entertainment). Tim O’Sullivan and hiscolleagues (1983) captured that type of mass communication quite well:

Mass communication is the practice and product of providing leisure entertain-ment and information to an unknown audience by means of corporatelyfinanced, industrially produced, state regulated, high-technology, privatelyconsumed commodities in the modern print, screen, audio and broadcastmedia. (O’Sullivan, Hartley, Saunders, & Fiske, 1983, p. 131) (This definitionwas written prior to the development of the Internet, cell phones, Palm Pilots,and CD-ROM games and does not encompass them.)

At the time of providing that definition, O’Sullivan et al. pointed out that thisusage of the term mass communication had the potential to mislead. They advisedthat, following in the aftercurrents of mass society theory, the word mass encour-ages many to think of the audience as a vast, undifferentiated agglomeration ofunthinking individuals, likely to behave in a non-rational, if not irrational, manner.This conception of the audience is misleading. In reality, those who watch televi-sion or read newspapers or go to movies are a heterogeneous group who bringmany different contexts (encoding envelopes) to any message. Moreover, O’Sul-livan et al. added, the word communication tends to mask the social and industrialnature of the media and promotes a tendency to think of them as analogous tointerpersonal communication, that is, communication on a mass scale. Back in1983, with these caveats in place, O’Sullivan, Hartley, Saunders, & Fiske’s defini-tion was generally accepted and was well used. Parallel definitions were putforward by others, including DeFleur & Ball-Rokeach (1982).

However, times and technology have changed. Beginning in about 1990,when Internet usage began to migrate from science communication to the widerworld, the possibilities for person-to-person communication on a mass scaleexpanded dramatically. Suddenly, it became possible to post an e-mail to an


address anywhere in the world that had an e-mail system, where the messagewould await access by the user. The transmission was instantaneous and free—nowriting paper, envelope, postage stamp, mailbox, mail pickup, imperfect postoffice sorting and handling, travel by air, land, or sea, re-sorting, and delivery; nor,alternatively, any dictation over a phone to a telegrapher and an exorbitant chargeper word; nor, alternatively again, any need for a dedicated machine to create agraphic to be sent over phone lines to arrive in fuzzy form at the other end. Inquick succession, a number of technologies were added on to text-exchange pro-tocols so that by 2000, digital files of any type— text, sound, image—could beexchanged between any computer user and any other computer user for an insig-nificant cost. Moreover, with the deployment of World Wide Web (WWW) tech-nology, alongside platform-independent file writing and reading, the foundationsof centralized mass communication (that is, corporately financed, industriallyproduced, state-regulated, high-technology institutions) as the only form of masscommunication began to unravel.

By 2000, it had also become possible for any person with a bit of effort (andlittle more expense than a computer, some software, and Internet access) to createa Web site that was accessible around the world. In other words, while the Internetstarted off as a means for person-to-person communication (on a mass scale), asthe business community began to use the Internet for commercial content, andwith the success of WWW technology, the Internet became both a massperson-to-person communication system and a mass (decentralized) broadcastsystem— in short, a large-scale communication system open to and welcoming(by its affordability) the public. It allowed anyone who wished to do so to createcontent for next to nothing and make that content available (i.e., broadcast it) tothe world. Given that millions were anxious to do just that, search engines weredeveloped to facilitate finding information, thereby adding substantially to theeffectiveness of the technology as a means of mass communication.

These changes are far more significant than people, including members ofthe media and media theorists generally, recognize. In a sense, these changesexpose O’Sullivan and his colleagues’ caveats to be an awareness of an inade-quacy of the mass communication system at a particular stage in its evolution.Like Newton, before Einstein, O’Sullivan, Hartley, Saunders, & Fiske describedwhat they saw in the context of their time. What they could not imagine was tech-nology developing that would allow interpersonal communication on a massscale. No one did, except Marshall McLuhan, and few understood fully orbelieved what McLuhan actually claimed. So, reflective of their time (andthen-current usage of the term), they defined mass communication not as masscommunication at all but rather as the mass distribution of information and enter-tainment products. Looked at now, such a definition appears to carry echoes ofmass society theory: not its moral, anti-alienating force, but its view of mass com-munication as centralized production and widespread distribution.


The past ten years of technological change have set in place communicationon a mass scale. As a consequence, we are now in a position to put forward a newdefinition of mass communication with three different subsections. Here they are.

Mass communication is state- and interstate-organized transmission of intel-ligence, including (1) centralized mass information or entertainment dissemina-tion (encompassing radio, television, newspapers, film, magazines, books,recorded and performed music, and advertising); (2) decentralized information orentertainment dissemination (on the World Wide Web); and (3) provision fordecentralized media-based interaction on a mass scale (via, for example, tele-phone, the mail, e-mail, pagers, two-way radio, and fax).

1. Centralized mass information or entertainment dissemination— in shorterform, centralized mass communication— is the corporately financed indus-trial production of entertainment and information to large, unknown audi-ences by means of print, screen, audio, broadcast, audiovisual, and Internettechnologies or public performance for both private and public consumption.In certain instances (e.g., broadcasting and, less often, print) it is state regu-lated.

2. Decentralized, publicly accessible, information or entertainmentdissemination— in shorter form, decentralized mass communication— is thewide dissemination by individuals or organizations either through readyaccess to, or wide distribution of, symbolic (i.e., information or entertain-ment) products through sometimes state-regulated, publicly accessible chan-nels (e.g., the Web, e-mail).

3. Public mass communication— in shorter form, mass communication— iscommunication on a mass scale: the exchange of intelligence at the societallevel among individuals or small or large groups by means of publicly acces-sible, sometimes state-regulated channels.

Note that by reconfiguring mass communication in this way, the public accesscomponent gets built into what mass communication actually is, and centralizedcontrol becomes a special case rather than the foundation stone of the enterprise.

The mass mediaNow let us turn to the term mass media, which is really a contraction of the termmass communication media. O’Sullivan and his colleagues provide a definition ofmass media by providing a list, which runs as follows:

Usually understood as newspapers, magazines, cinema, television, radio andadvertising; sometimes including book publishing (especially popular fiction)and music (the pop industry). (O’Sullivan, Hartley, Saunders, & Fiske, 1983,p. 130)

To this list I would add interactive media (such as CD-ROMs, especiallygames) and certain uses of the Internet. This list of mass media, even with thesetwo additions, amounts to concrete examples of centralized mass communicationinstitutions, i.e., sub-definition (1). And as James Curran (1982, p. 202) points


out, the mass media are really a subset of modern centralized mass communica-tion institutions and practices, because such a list does not include all instances ofcentralized mass communication. Buildings, pictures, statues, coins, banners,stained glass, songs, medallions, and rituals of all kinds are mass media in thatthey involve institutions communicating with members of society. Today, theyremain media of centralized mass communication but we do not often talk aboutthem as mass media institutions.

In the context of widespread technological change, the mass media can beredefined as containing the three elements identified in the proposed three-partdefinition of mass communication; thus a need for a redefinition of the massmedia.

The mass media can be defined as the sometimes state-regulated, corporatelyfinanced, and industrially organized institutions of information and entertainmentdissemination such as newspapers, magazines, cinema, television, radio, adver-tising, book publishing, music publishing, recording and performance, and allinteractive media that are engaged in providing entertainment and information tolarge, unknown audiences for both private and public consumption. The massmedia also include Internet activities (e.g., Web sites) designed to disseminateinformation broadly. Finally, the mass media encompass those technologies andorganizations which allow communicative interaction on a mass scale—phones,faxes, postal services, cell phones, Blackberrys™, Palm Pilots™, and the like.

Note that because the term mass media focuses on technologies and institu-tions, whereas the term mass communication concentrates on process, there is nota complete parallel in the definitions. Thus, rather than speak of the centralizedmass media, the publicly accessible decentralized mass media, and publicly acces-sible mass media, it appears more appropriate to emphasize that the mass mediainclude centralized dissemination, decentralized dissemination, and provision forinteraction on a mass scale. Additionally, such a redefinition recaptures the tele-phone, fax machines, and postal services as part of the mass media rather than rel-egating the telephone and fax machines to telecommunication and the post officeto an often undiscussed medium.

With this said, I would be remiss not to consider what others have beenthinking about mass communication.

Other conceptions of mass communicationThe journal literature discussing conceptions of mass communication is not rich.Moreover, it would appear that our U.S. colleagues have enmeshed themselves inan unnecessary dichotomy, less accepted and less institutionalized outside theUSA.

Caplan (2001), for example, entitles his exploration as “Challenging theMass-Interpersonal Communication Dichotomy: Are We Witnessing the Emer-gence of an Entirely New Communication System?” His article is based in a con-sideration of the literature rather than the phenomenon itself and is thusencumbered by the notion that mass communication and interpersonal communi-cation are two separate entities. At some level of specificity they are. As Caplan


points out, Goffman’s (1959, 1963, 1967) characterization of interpersonal inter-action, involving mutual considerations by all participants of the others, encour-ages one to see interpersonal communication as fundamentally quite differentfrom mass communication. Certainly there is plenty of other literature and insti-tutional practice, especially in the United States, to encourage one to think of thetwo as separate.

However, working with such a dichotomy at this level of specificity pullsCaplan into a vortex that sees him, following Walther (1996), talking about abrand-new field of Internet-mediated interpersonal communication they call“hyperpersonal” communication. Caplan notes that other U.S. scholars have alsobecome enmeshed in the mass/interpersonal dichotomy, but that they haveattempted to combine the two fields into one. He cites Lea & Spears (1995) and P.B. O’Sullivan (1999) for using words such as blurring, merging, and bridging intheir attempts to integrate the fields. He rejects this developmental direction,citing Thomas Kuhn (1970) to support his desire for founding the new field ofhyperpersonal communication.

Conceptually, it is far easier and more ego gratifying to found, or help found,a new field than it is to create integrative conceptual structures. The possible cre-ation of a new field is not a positive development, not least because it is foundedon distinctly U.S. institutional practices and structures. When Caplan, citingBurgoon & Walther (1990), Feenberg (1989), Turkle (1994, 1996), Walther(1996), and Walther & Burgoon (1992), talks of distinctive features of hyperper-sonal message sending—“the development and editing of self-presentation,selective and optimized presentation of one’s self, and unfettered by unwantedcues or multiple conversation demands” (2001, p. 7)— the equivalents in a varietyof communication contexts are obvious. Such equivalents can be found in rhetor-ical skills, in letter writing, in lecturing, in acting, in radio performance, as well asin the design of television programs and movies and the writing of books. Everycommunicational act takes place within an encoding envelope that takes intoaccount content, medium, and receiver. Each communicational context is com-posed of a distinctive set of variables. Just as, following Feenberg (1989), the“me-as-text” of an e-mail differs from the “me” in face-to-face interactions, so the“me” in one face-to-face interaction differs from the “me” in any otherface-to-face interaction. Moreover, the presenting “I” behind each of these “me’s”is both one person and many—a complexity of situational and technology-biasedselves that forms an overall identity as well as multiple selves presented in mul-tiple contexts.

The issue in developing definitions or creating fields of inquiry is surely toexamine phenomena at an appropriate level of abstraction, one that allows one tomaintain a conceptual framework that provides insight into parallels as well asspecific differences. While the above definitions of mass, communication, masscommunication, and the mass media do not focus on interpersonal elements, theconsideration of those elements is not precluded. Opting for a new field of hyper-personal communication seems a bit overdetermined by technology.


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