Media logic and culture: Reply to oakes

Abstract

As fantastic as it may seem, in an electronic media age, media logic is implicated in our culture's "reality level." We do not have metaphysics; we have the Simpsons! Political life in the United States is explained less by "hegemony," corporate control," or "late capitalism," than it is by TV programs like "America's Most Wanted," "COPS," and the nightly network and "local" TV newscasts. Anyone who thinks that the New York Times, the Washington Post or the Wall Street Journal contributes more than an iota to the political views of Americans had best view a bit more "Oprah," "Geraldo," or "Murphy Brown." Fantastic! Any student of social life who is unaware of the mass media's impact is in for a rough landing! The essays in this volume directly or indirectly discuss the communica? tion process in general, and mass communication in particular. However, like most of social science, the authors treat communication as a resource that is somehow involved in a particular facet of social life, rather than as a topic of investigation in its own right. This general tendency has led many to presume that the mass media are important mainly as conduits or chan? nels, and that except for certain "content," the major media are somehow neutral to the really "important" logics and principles involving politics, organization, social stratification, and social change. Indeed, Max Weber deserves part of the credit for this point of view, including an implication that the "Protestant Ethic" constituted a kind of cultural logic in its own right! Many of Professor Oakes' comments about our book, Media Worlds in the Postjournalism Era (MWPJ), reflect this view about communication. Born of nearly two decades and several volumes, MWPJ represents our