Anthropology and Mass Media

Abstract

There is as yet no "anthropology of mass media." Even the intersection of anthropology and mass media appears rather small considering the published literature to date. Within the last five or so years, however, as anthropologists have increasingly struggled to define what falls within the legitimate realm of the study of "a culture" and within the privileged purview of "a discipline" (48,51,75, 107, 164), there has been a dramatic rise in interest in the study of mass media. Indeed, mass media themselves have been it contributing force in these processes of cultural and disciplinary deterritorialization. Mass media-defined in the conventional sense as the electronic media of radio, television, film, and recorded music, and the print media of newspapers, magazines, and popular literature-are at once artifacts, experiences, prac­ tices, and processes. They are economically and politically driven, linked to developments in science and technology, and like most domains of human life, their existence is inextricably bound up with the use of language. Given these various modalities and spheres of operation, there are numerous angles for approaching mass media anthropologically: as institutions, as workplaces, as communicative practices, as cultural products, as social activities, as aesthetic forms, and as historical developments. But beyond approaching specific facets of mass media anthropologically, it seems that the greater challenge lies in integrating the study of mass media into our analyses of the "total social fact" of modem life. How, for example, do mass media represent and shape cultural values within a given society?