Mass Media Anthropology Francisco Fernandez ([email protected]) Academic Adviser Department of Sociology at University of Chile
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UNIVERSITY OF CHILE SOCIAL SCIENCES FACULTY & PHILOSOPHY AND HUMANITIES FACULTY Ph.D. Dissertation 2001 Francisco Osorio ([email protected]) Fulbright/Conicyt Fellow Department of Anthropology at University of Chile Mass Media Anthropology Francisco Fernandez ([email protected]) Academic Adviser Department of Sociology at University of Chile Acknowledgments When I attended Elihu Katz’s conference at the University of Chile, where I was following the Ph.D. program in philosophy of social science, I never thought I would be writing my dissertation with Katz as a Fulbright/Conicyt Fellow visiting the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. I do not have the words to express my gratitude to Prof. Katz for his support. Let me say that I am a newcomer to the field. As a social anthropologist, with both a MA and a Ph.D. in epistemology, I just was in the right place at the right time. This situation has advantages and disadvantages, as everything I supposed. The disadvantage is that I did not know nothing about mass communication (which I could easily apply to anthropology and philosophy). The advantage is that mass communication is an awesome prospect for me. When I started to learn this new language, I was impressed that field anthropologists working in the subject talked about people as consumers, producers or audiences. Before that moment, I only heard about peasants, indigenous peoples or natives. They also speak about exposure. I understood that technology influenced families, but I never thought families could be exposed to a cultural product, like people taking the sun in the beach. When I read the word viewer, I first thought it was a synonym for anthropologist, because we usually refer ourselves as observers. However, the viewer is not a social scientist but someone who watches television. Then I realized that an observer is not a viewer. In addition, it was interesting to me that viewers consume, interpret, appropriate, resist or negotiate television’s texts. Almost all the social sciences are here, from economics (consume), politics (negotiate) to hermeneutics (interpret). I say almost because the point is that anthropology has yet to join this conversation. For example, during the twentieth-century there was not a book called “Anthropological Introduction to Mass Communication”. At the same time, I felt comfortable as an outsider, fitting the traditional role of an anthropologist. At Philadelphia, I want to thank the Canadian scholar Mark Brewin who commented on the whole dissertation, helping me to make this work understandable. I received support and friendship from the Bolivian Amalia Prado, the Canadian Avril Orloff, and the Israeli Lilach Nir. I want to thank the Americans Barbara Grabias, Elena Larsen, Jane Appleyard, Ricardo Wray and David Park for their kind hospitality. At Santiago, I want to thank my colleagues Marcelo Arnold, Andres Recasens, Fernando Duran and Guido Vallejos for commenting earlier drafts of this essay. Francisco Fernandez guided me through the last part. I want to thank him. I conducted this research with a fellowship from the Chilean National Council of Science and Technology. I received a fellowship from The Fulbright Commission to visit Prof. Elihu Katz. I want to thank both institutions. Francisco Osorio Philadelphia, winter 2000 Index The problem. How the social sciences deal with mass media, with particular reference 1 1 to anthropology 1.1 Media Effects Tradition 1 1.2 Anthropology and Mass Media 2 1.3 Objectives 4 1.4 Appendix Chapter 1 6 2 Mass media appearances in anthropological literature: a journal review 1970-1999 11 2.1 Themes and problems 12 2.1.1 Media effects 13 2.1.2 Anthropology and media 17 2.1.3 Mass media and ritual 18 2.1.4 Family and kinship 19 2.1.5 Mass media and health 19 2.2 Commentary 20 2.3 Appendix Chapter 2 22 Comparing treatment of anthropology in journals of sociology, political science and 3 57 visual anthropology 3.1 Sociology 58 3.2 Political science 59 3.3 Visual Anthropology 59 3.4 Commentary 61 4 Where else anthropologists do write about mass media? 62 4.1 Communicational journals and other journals 62 4.2 Books and dissertations 63 4.3 Commentary 64 4.4 Appendix Chapter 4 65 5 Why is interest in mass media anthropology growing? 77 5.1 Studying cultures at a distance (World War II) 77 5.2 Anthropology and Nationalism 78 5.3 Anthropology and Development 79 6 What can anthropology contribute to communication research? 82 6.1 Call for anthropological concepts 82 6.2 Examples of use of anthropology in communication 83 6.3 Anthropological methods that might prove useful 89 6.4 Anthropological concepts that might be useful 91 6.5 Appendix Chapter 6 97 7 Closing stages. Proposal for an anthropology of mass communication 100 7.1 The subject matter 100 7.2 Methodology 100 7.3 Theory 101 7.3.1 Anthropological schools in mass communication 101 7.4 An anthropological theory for the mass media 102 7.5 Closing stages 107 8 Appendix from the journal research 108 8.1 Anthropological studies of mass communication 109 8.2 Sociological studies of mass communication 117 8.3 Political studies of mass communication 134 8.4 Anthropological studies of film 141 9 Bibliography 146 1 1. The Problem. How the Social Sciences Deal with Mass Media, with particular reference to Anthropology As a member of the social sciences, anthropology until recently (1980s) did not work systematically with mass communication. We did not know if anthropological research were following the same trend or not (comparing to communication research). We did not know if anthropology were answering questions posted by communication research. We did not know how many studies were conducted by anthropologists or where they were writing. We did not know if anthropology could make a contribution. The purpose of the present work is to answer all these questions in order to help in the institutionalization of an anthropology of mass communication. I think it is time to coined the term mass media anthropology. Mass media anthropology must be understood as a new study object for anthropology, not as a new discipline within the social sciences. I cannot justify the existence of a whole new discipline called mass media anthropology because it makes more sense to define a new area within anthropology than to create an independent domain. This chapter has three sections. The first one gives the context to the relationship between social science and mass communication. The second section reviews the discussion about the connection between anthropology and mass media and, finally, the third section describes the objectives of this work. 1.1 Media Effects Tradition One possible way to understand how the social sciences deal with mass media is attending to the summary descriptions of media effect traditions written by Elihu Katz, which appeared in the International Encyclopedia of Communications (see page 5). I think it is justified to take this path because most of the anthropological research on mass communication falls into the media effects tradition. However, before developing this argument, I will concentrate in the way social sciences have dealt with mass media. Katz’s argument is that there is a popular belief that television (and other mass media) has the power to influence individual behavior. This folk knowledge says that television can change the mind of any member of the society and, therefore, to change individual action. Our friends, neighbors, we ourselves can all give examples from daily life. However, when we ask how this is possible, what is the mechanism underlying this situation, the answer gets confused. Such a mechanism needs to fulfil two characteristics. First, it has to rely only on the broadcast and, second, incorporate an inoculation. The first condition asserts that a television campaign, asking someone to vote for a particular candidate cannot physically bring the candidate into the home but only the candidate’s televisual representation. This symbol is broadcast and penetrates into someone’s mind. Therefore, the broadcasts symbol breaks through barriers (whether physical, biological, social, cultural or mental) and enter the individual. Nevertheless, this condition is not good enough, because other candidates can do the same. If a second candidate uses this media, then it will again change the individual’s mind. In order to avoid this problem, and to be effective, an inoculation is needed for the broadcast. This inoculation has to block any other political message, even if the opponent uses the same television time slot, to produce a powerful effect in someone. As far as we know empirically, there is no such a mechanism. Politicians and advertisers cannot in a simply way control someone’s will through their broadcast message. The question is whether there is no hope to such enquiry, or do we simply not know it yet. From the point of view of social science, the former path has a longer trajectory than the later. As Katz says, the history of the mass communication research can be described as a persistent search for effects that better describe the social roles of the mass media. In other words, if campaign studies are wrong, then who is right? There is no easy answer to this problem. Different research traditions, anchored in almost every social science, have contributed to the field of mass communication (see the table displayed at the end of this chapter). According to this literature, drawing on the summary of Emily West (1999), the Uses and Gratifications school investigates the active audience. Instead of assuming a direct relationship between messages and effects, it proposes that audience members put media messages to use, and that such uses act as intervening variable in the effect process.