RHETOR 20 Chapter Notes - Chapter 3: Umberto Eco, Understanding Media, Mass Media
Document Summary
Before: if you want political power you control army/ police > today: power rests in peson who control communications. Age of communication: information itself is the chief economic merchandise. Economic power in the hands of those who not only control information media but control the means of production. Communications media would be alienating even if they belonged to the community. There is no longer writer"s freedom - contents of message not depend on author but on tech/ sociological characteristics of the medium. Mass media do not transmit ideologies, they are themselves an ideology. Content does not matter, what is important is the gradual and uniform bombardment of information. Addressee only receives a global ideological lesson, the call to narcotic passiveness. When mass media triumphs > human being dies > new man is born - accustomed to perceiving the world differently (not sure if better or worse) Apocalyptics: end of the world vs. mclucan: new phase of history.
