Pluralist media research presupposed that local networks counterbalanced media influence

Evidence

But its significant findings about the role of “personal influence” or of “cosmopolitans” and “locals” were also penetrated by a larger issue: was America a “pluralist” society, and in so-called pluralist societies did regional, familial, neighborhood, and small-group networks provide effective “countervailing forces” against the impact of the media? The broad tendency of this phase of research was to return an answer to this question in the form of a cautious “yes.” That phase, too, is passing. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 842