Review: Mass Media/Mass Culture: An Introduction by James R. Wilson and S. Roy Wilson

Abstract

The Mass Media developed as an industry with the rise of modernity in the American social system. Its primary effects have been to reinforce certain dogmatic truths derived from its multicultural heritage, which emerged out of its former status as a colonized territory. American society is culturally a mosaic, in which mass communication media such as books, TV, radio, magazines are tools that allow a profit to be made. Thus, mass media is crucial to the development of the modern structure of American society. The media uses cultural elements that can be sold to “followers”, denominated as the “audience”, “readers”, or even “fans”. Mass culture refers to everything in the culture that is generated and disseminated via mass media. Mass Media/Mass Culture aims to explore the media and cultural issues that are historically associated with the American social system. The authors assert that the mass media is astonishingly successful in telling us what we should think. The Wilsons’ particular focus is on the effects of this dissemination by using a conceptual outlook grounded in the association and dissociation analysis of media and culture.

Keywords

• Mass Media, Mass Culture
• James R. Wilson
• S. Roy Wilson