Managing in the Media

Chapter 5

Mass media theory

5.1 Summary

During the nineteenth century, a number of changes took place in Europe that were to influence the development of mass communication and the growth of the mass media during the next century and a half. Major changes were the establishment of mass urban communities, the decomposition of a fundamentally agrarian society that had existed since medieval times, and the establishment of an economy based upon industry rather than the land. Ferdinand Tonnies expressed this change as the contrast between Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft – the development of a community based upon tradition and kinship to one based upon contract.

The year 1848 saw the publication of the Communist Manifesto, and was a year during which ...