extended communication makes available. This is a topic which we shall
return to in Chapter 6.Only broadcast is constitutive of a media ‘mass’
Another difference between the first and second media age, or, as this
book proffers, broadcast and network architectures, is that whilst both
produce individuation, only broadcast enables a mass conscience collective.
As has been argued elsewhere, while the Internet facilitates reciprocity
with little or no recognition, broadcast facilitates mass recognition (in the
form of meaning integration) with little reciprocity. Moreover, the mass is
constituted as an effect of the broadcast apparatus itself.^19 There is no
mass without broadcast, in the sense that it is a social body entirely
derived from extended speech events. Such a mass has little opportunity
for horizontal interaction between each of its members, nor is there much
opportunity for interaction between a mass and the few centres of media
production, but the mass itself retains its basic form and solidarity,
Althusser has argued, as long as it accepts its interpellation via such a
centre (see Chapter 2). Broadcast so homogenizes a centre and makes pos-
sible the so-called ‘mainstream’, that it creates within itself a tension
between the impulse for collective totemization of an image, a message,
a narrative (the synthesization of a conscience collective), at the same time
as it reinforces the cult of individualism from which the need for such
synthesis is drawn. Broadcast effects a dual movement of separating and
uniting a given audience, which divides the reciprocal cohesion of sub-
jects (based on direct interaction) and reconstitutes this cohesion on a
more abstract basis of association.
As per Table 4.1, the solidarity of a media mass depends on the kind
of broadcast. The more performative the broadcast, the more cohesive is
the conscience collectiveof the mass formed by such an event. It is also evi-
dent that this is not simply an effect of such broadcast but is itself ‘popu-
lar’.^20 It is the performative feature of broadcast which can give it a bardic
function, as discussed by Fiske and Hartley (1978) in relation to televi-
sion.^21 Individuals wanting to find out about a spectacle event that they
have heard about (from a friend or a fragment of news) will inevitably
tune in to a big network channel. From the standpoint of the broadcasters,
Marc (2000) also points out the sermonic features of modern broadcast:
‘Broadcasting by its nature is an evangelical activity, whether it is used to
preach the gospel of consumerism (commercial television) or the gospel
of ethnical culture (PBS [Public Broadcasting Service]). A broadcast typically
invites everyone who can receive its messages to sympathize, empathize,
learn the creed, buy the products, and join the fold’ (640).
However, Marc, who adopts a technologically centred understanding
of broadcast, views cable television as not capable of such bardic func-
tions, and suggests that the decline of over-the-air transmission can be110 COMMUNICATION THEORYHolmes-04.qxd 2/15/2005 1:00 PM Page 110