Labelling research mass communication biased inquiry toward impact studies

Evidence

Williams argued that it was now time (over a decade ago) to bury the term “mass communications” as a label for departments, research programs, and conferences. The term was disastrous, he thought, for three reasons. First, it limits studies to a few specialized areas such as broadcasting and film and what is miscalled “popular literature” when there is “the whole common area of dis- course in speech and writing that always needs to be considered.” Second, the term “mass” has become lodged in our language in its weakest sense—the mass audience—and stands in the way of analysis of “specific modern communica- tion situations and of most specific modern communications conventions and forms.” Third, because the audience was conceived as a mass, the only question worth asking was how, and then whether, film, television, or books influenced or corrupted people. Consequently, it was always much easier to get funding for these kinds of impact studies than any other kind of research. — James W. Carey, Communication as Culture- Essays on…, 240

Categorization

• XREF: Explains why ‘effects’ research dominated American communication studies, connecting to Carey’s larger argument about the transmission view. — connects to: Mass media resists the theoretical models that work for interpersonal communication — James W. Carey, Communication as Culture- Essays on…, 334; Official bias analysis shifts to identifying conditions enabling archival repetition and silence.
• SEED: Article angle: how the naming of a discipline quietly dictates which research questions get funded and pursued.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — James W. Carey, Communication as Culture- Essays on…, 240

Broader Connections

• Official bias analysis shifts to identifying conditions enabling archival repetition and silence. #corroborates (0.60)
• Mass media resists the theoretical models that work for interpersonal communication #expands (0.50) — James W. Carey, Communication as Culture- Essays on…, 334