A Mei 2005165438+1October 28th 15: 15 social science front, No.3, 2005.
Mass media is playing an increasingly important role in people's social life. As a tool and means of social control, mass media realizes its social control function mainly through the guidance and supervision of public opinion, the establishment and consolidation of beliefs, social hints and education. Mass media has both positive and negative social control functions. The negative function of mass media will have a negative impact on social control, which is embodied in the following aspects: excessive intervention in social policies will weaken formal control, the uncertainty of public opinion orientation will affect the control effect, unreasonable social hints will easily mislead social members, and the public's excessive dependence on mass media will affect the improvement of social members' quality and the harmony of social relations. Understanding the social control function and mechanism of mass media and facing up to the negative influence of its negative function on social control will help to better realize social control and promote the harmonious development of society.
Keywords: social control function mechanism of mass media
First, the social control function of mass media and its mechanism
With the continuous development of information network and communication technology, mass media plays an increasingly important role in people's social life. Based on the growing influence of mass media, some scholars call mass media power the "fourth power" alongside traditional legislative, administrative and judicial powers, while mass media organizations are called "the fourth department of the government". Compared with tangible rigid powers such as legislative power, administrative power, judicial power and military power, mass media power is an invisible power and a flexible power. It permeates every corner of social life in its unique way, imperceptibly changes people's social environment, lifestyle, way of thinking and values, promotes the development of human education, enriches people's cultural life and realizes effective control of people's thoughts and behaviors.
(A) the mass media through public opinion guidance and supervision to achieve social control.
The so-called public opinion refers to the views, opinions and opinions expressed by most people on controversial events in social life. As a psychological tendency hidden in people's minds, public opinion creates a social atmosphere through social evaluation with value judgment, such as praise and appreciation or criticism and condemnation of a particular value or behavior, thus affecting the value orientation and behavior of social members. Generally speaking, "a person's views and behaviors on himself are greatly influenced by public intentions", that is to say, under the influence of the social atmosphere formed by public opinion, members of society usually obey the guidance and restriction of public opinion consciously or unconsciously. It is precisely because of its extensive influence on social members that public opinion has become an important means of cultural control and occupies an important position in the modern social control system.
As a means of social control, public opinion has two main forming mechanisms: one is formed spontaneously by the public. This spontaneous public opinion is the self-organization and self-regulation of social members, which is embodied in the free control of the social system. Its advantages are low control cost and high recognition of social members. The limitation lies in the small control range, simple control mode, easy to be influenced by contingency and poor control predictability; Second, it is formed by the social organization system consciously and purposefully spreading through the mass media. This consciously formed public opinion is the conscious grasp and guidance of social members on social operation, which is reflected in the self-control of social system. Compared with social self-control, self-control is characterized by clear subject, object and purpose, which embodies the social members' mastery of the initiative in social operation. (2) With the continuous improvement of the conscious level of social members, the role of self-control in modern society will become more and more prominent. Accordingly, as an important tool and carrier of self-control, the public opinion control function of mass media will become more and more important.
So, how does the mass media realize its public opinion control function? Generally speaking, there are two ways: one is public opinion orientation; The second is public opinion supervision.
The so-called public opinion orientation means that the mass media disseminates and publicizes a series of social norms to the public and guides the behaviors and values of social members in order to maintain social order. On the one hand, the mass media will publicize the laws and decrees formulated and promulgated by the legislative department and the public administration, and call on people to abide by the existing social norms. At the same time, mass media will spread values, life beliefs and behavior patterns to people, thus guiding the public to choose and establish a correct world outlook, outlook on life and behavior patterns; On the other hand, the mass media feed back public opinions and voices to social ruling groups through channels such as internet, television, radio and newspapers, prompting legislative departments and public administrative institutions to consider public needs, adjust and improve the existing legal and institutional systems, and constantly improve their administrative ability to maintain social stability and social order.
The so-called supervision by public opinion refers to the exposure, criticism and condemnation of deviant behavior by mass media, thus promoting social behavior to conform to social norms and maintaining social order. On the one hand, the mass media exposed the illegal, illegal and disciplinary behaviors of a few members of society, aroused social concern, advocated public criticism, condemnation and stopping deviant behavior, and stimulated the conscience and self-blame of deviant people, thus ending their deviant behavior; On the other hand, by exposing corruption and inaction in public administration, the mass media has aroused accusations from members of society, formed pressure of public opinion, urged public administration to punish corruption and inaction, improved public image, warned and deterred corrupt elements and dereliction of duty, and to a certain extent, achieved supervision and checks and balances on public power, thus reducing opportunities for power corruption and abuse and enhancing public confidence.
(B) the mass media through the establishment and consolidation of faith to achieve social control.
Legal control and public opinion control belong to the category of external control, which are mainly based on the coercion of social forces. Therefore, they can't control the secret parts of the life of social members, and they can't control people by avoiding evil spirits. In other words, social control is the most effective only when social members internalize social norms and consciously use social norms to restrain and check their behaviors and values. In other words, the key to social control lies in the internal control of social members. So, how is internal control realized? This is the formation and consolidation of belief, that is, belief control.
The so-called belief control refers to the control of social members through people's recognition and conviction of some unrealistic power or value system. So, how is the public belief formed and consolidated? This is mainly due to the spread of mass media. As western scholars have said, "mass media is a cultural weapon of the established industrial social order, which is mainly used to maintain, establish and consolidate traditional beliefs and behaviors, rather than changing, threatening or weakening them". (4) Specifically, the mass media mainly realize the belief control of social members through two ways:
The first is to control the public's personal ideals by shaping models. For example, publicize revolutionary figures and outstanding deeds through films, television, newspapers and other forms of communication, and advocate the public to establish the social ideal of "serving the people"; Through the rendering of historical figures such as Bao Zheng, we appeal to the public to be honest and law-abiding; Encourage people to be loyal, love the people, work hard, love their jobs and uphold justice by publicizing heroic deeds; By publicizing advanced figures and deeds, people are encouraged to fulfill their duties in their respective posts, be brave in pioneering and innovating, and make more contributions to the cause of socialist construction.
Second, through the cultivation and indoctrination of ideology, we can guide the formation of synonymous values. Ideological control is the key to social control. It is impossible for the ruling class and the ruling party in any country to give up the right to speak in the ideological position if they want to maintain and consolidate the existing ruling order. The consolidation of ideological stance is often achieved through mass media. By repeatedly spreading and inculcating the ideology representing the interests of the ruling group and the ruling party to the public, the mass media subtly influences people's cognitive structure and forms the same values in the "cultural acculturation", thus maintaining and consolidating the existing social order.
(C) the mass media through social cues to achieve social control
To some extent, legal control, public opinion control and belief control rely on punishment and reward to make people's behavior meet the needs of society. Among them, law and public opinion mainly belong to the negative control category such as punishment, and faith mainly belongs to the positive control category such as reward and encouragement. So, is it possible to achieve social control without rewards and punishments? The answer is yes. Where does this control come from? Ross pointed out that the power of this control mainly comes from social clues. ⑤ Psychological research shows that without confrontation, people may accept some information quickly and uncritically, and make behavioral responses accordingly. This reaction process is social suggestion. ⑥
As far as the relationship between mass media and the public is concerned, they are obviously in an unequal state of information possession. In this case, the mass media obviously has the conditions and advantages to form social hints to the public. Research shows that the topics emphasized by the mass media are directly proportional to the topics that the public attaches importance to. In other words, the mass media set the importance of the problem through its own various ways of emphasizing. This kind of setting is going on every day. While the public accepts this kind of "setting", they also unconsciously feel the media's evaluation of the importance of information besides transmitting information. This feeling is accumulated over time, so in a subtle way, the public's concerns gradually converge with the media to some extent. ⑦ This is the social suggestive power of mass media. It is by virtue of this peculiar power that the mass media has achieved invisible control over people's behaviors and values without reward or punishment.
In addition to agenda setting, mass media also controls social members through the construction of "media truth". The so-called "media truth" refers to the social facts constructed by the mass media and is a symbolic representation of objective truth. ⑧ Media truth is a social fact that the subject of mass media makes subjective choice, judgment and evaluation of objective truth according to his own experience, knowledge and cultural background, and then transmits it to the audience through mass media. This kind of social fact constantly defines, influences and restricts individual behavior and values, and potentially becomes an increasingly important reference situation for modern social culture.
Mass media realize social control through education.
With the continuous progress of communication technology and the enrichment of communication means, mass media has become an important carrier of education, making universities without walls a reality, greatly expanding the scope of educated people and promoting the innovation of educational methods, such as TV teaching, online education and multimedia teaching. In the process of widely participating in public education, mass media also bears the function of social control:
First of all, the mass media supports the political culture of the current system through communication, and realizes political control over social members through political socialization. On the one hand, mass media cultivate individual enthusiasm and ability for political participation through political education; On the other hand, mass media cultivate the public's recognition, loyalty and sense of responsibility for the current political system and political value through political education. In addition, the mass media also grasp the direction of political control through the choice of information, such as the determination of political education content, the definition of school textbooks, and the review of press and publication.
Secondly, the mass media realizes the moral control of social members by spreading the moral norms that meet the needs of social development and by moral socialization. On the one hand, the mass media forms "moral heteronomy" for members of society through the propaganda and indoctrination of moral norms; On the other hand, the mass media internalize moral values and form "moral self-discipline" of social members by broadcasting movies, television and radio with morality as the theme, publishing articles with morality as the theme, and opening interactive columns with morality as the topic.
Second, the negative function of mass media has a negative impact on social control.
Mass media itself is a double-edged sword, which can guide and mislead the audience, integrate the society and cause social unrest, educate people to create a group of mediocrity, and entertain people to poison people's physical and mental health. Attending once the mass media is distorted and used, it will not only fail to control the society, but may threaten and destroy the order. Therefore, we should not only attach importance to the positive function of social control of mass media, but also fully understand its negative function. The negative function of mass media has a great influence on social control in the following aspects:
(A) excessive intervention in social policies will weaken the formal power of social control.
It is necessary and feasible to supervise and restrict public power within the scope permitted by laws and policies, but the excessive intervention of mass media in social policies will often weaken the formal social control power and affect the authority of institutional control. As American scholar Elihu Katz said: "Television weakens the party system and public participation; New media: cable TV, satellite, computer media, etc. It is destroying the cohesion of the country from inside and outside. " Lu's excessive intervention in social policies by mass media is mainly reflected in two aspects:
First of all, some individuals and groups with liberal and anarchist tendencies use the mass media to excessively interfere in state affairs and social policies. In recent years, some individuals and social groups consciously use the mass media represented by the Internet to promote values that conflict with mainstream values. In addition, some illegal organizations use mass media to attack state affairs and social policies and endanger state power. The above intervention undermined the cohesion of the country from the inside.
Second, some countries use mass media to publicize their ideology and interfere in other countries' internal affairs. Under the background of globalization, "cultural hegemonism" and "cultural imperialism" abound in international exchanges. Some countries often criticize and interfere with other countries' national systems and social policies through mass media based on their own political needs and their own ideology and system. The above intervention has damaged the cohesion of the country from the outside.
(B) the uncertainty of public opinion orientation affects the effect of social control
Although mass media can play the role of public opinion guidance and supervision, the uncertainty of public opinion control will often greatly reduce the control effect. The uncertainty of public opinion control is manifested in two aspects: first, contradictory arguments can often be seen in the contents of different media at the same time; Second, in the content of the same media in different periods, you can often see contradictory remarks and opinions.
The main reason for the first uncertainty lies in the gap between "media truth" and "objective truth". As mentioned above, media truth is a social fact that the subject of mass media makes subjective choices, judgments and evaluations of objective truth according to his own experience, knowledge and cultural background, and then transmits it to the audience through mass media. In other words, the media reality presented to the audience by the mass media is the "reality" processed by the mass media subject. In this sense, "media truth" is the "subjective truth" of the subject of mass media. Because different individuals have different understandings of objective truth, the media truth processed by different communication subjects will naturally be different. Therefore, it is entirely possible for contradictory arguments to appear in different media at the same time.
The second uncertainty mainly comes from the different demands for mass media in different periods. As the mouthpiece of the party and the government, the mass media should accept the guidance and supervision of the party and the government and serve the maintenance of social rule and social order; As the main body of market economy, mass media should serve specific interest groups, namely advertisers, so mass communication should be restricted by specific interest groups. In a sense, the mass media, as the mouthpiece of the party and the government, is mainly oriented to social interests or public interests, while the mass media, as the spokesperson of specific interest groups, is mainly oriented to economic interests or special interests. Although economic benefits and social benefits, public interests and special interests can be coordinated with each other, there is inevitably a balance and conflict between them. In this case, it is not surprising that the same media has contradictory views and opinions at different times.
Undoubtedly, the uncertainty of public opinion orientation will inevitably reduce the authority of public opinion and affect the effect of social control.
(3) Unreasonable social hints are easy to mislead members of society.
Mass media realize social suggestion through agenda setting and the construction of "media truth". Reasonable agenda setting and "media truthfulness" can effectively control social members through social hints, but unreasonable agenda setting and "media truthfulness" often mislead social members.
1. Unreasonable social cues can easily lead to stereotypes. In the process of mass communication, unreasonable agenda setting and "media truth" often mislead the audience, strengthen people's stereotypes in repeated similar information, and lead to people's cognitive deviation. For example, although the mass media spread the idea of equality between men and women to the public through various formal channels, in the actual communication process, the reflection on women is far less than that on men. On the one hand, the reflection of the mass media on the differences between men and women deepens people's stereotype of gender inequality, on the other hand, it is easy to lead people to expect different roles for different sexes, thus hindering the popularization of gender equality consciousness.
2. Unreasonable social suggestion intensifies the contradiction between ideal and reality, leading to people's relative deprivation and social instability. As a cultural product, mass media works, especially film and television works, often show people an ideal scene. On the one hand, the ideal picture displayed by mass media induces people's desires, stimulates people's yearning for a better life, and has a strong impact on people's original beliefs such as hard work and struggle. On the other hand, it is in sharp contrast with the social reality of people's lack of material life, difficulties and constant setbacks, which intensifies the contradiction between ideal and reality and produces a sense of relative deprivation, thus triggering social instability.
3. Improper hints may induce deviant behavior. Aggressive suggestion theory holds that exposure to aggressive stimuli will increase a person's physical and emotional motivation. In other words, the stimulation of TV violent content will increase the probability of aggressive behavior. Observational learning theory also holds that people can learn aggressive behavior by watching aggressive programs on TV. In some cases, aggressive people on TV will give them a demonstration. It can be seen that a large number of violent and pornographic contents in the mass media often have a negative impact on the behavior tendency and lifestyle of the audience. If these influences are not controlled, deviant behavior may be induced.
(D) The public's excessive dependence on mass media has affected the improvement of the overall quality of social members and the harmony of social relations.
Mass media, with its advanced communication technology and rich information content, can shorten people's time and space distance and enrich people's knowledge and experience, but the excessive dependence of the public on mass media will often affect the improvement of the overall quality of social members and the harmony of social relations.
1. Mass media not only enriches people's knowledge and experience, but also affects the improvement of people's comprehensive quality. Through the mass media, people can certainly learn about the local customs and customs around the world, appreciate the beautiful scenery around the world, learn the knowledge of ancient and modern China and foreign countries, learn from the experience and lessons of others, enrich their own experience and knowledge, and truly "a scholar can know what's going on in the world without going out." However, the knowledge people receive through the mass media is disordered after all. The audience's attention is always following the agenda set by the mass media and absorbed by the "media truth" constructed by the mass media. There is no time to distinguish the authenticity of information, and it is impossible to digest and think about a large amount of knowledge spread by the mass media in time, which will inevitably lead to the reduction of the thinking ability of the audience, especially teenagers, thus simplifying the audience's thinking and affecting the improvement of the overall quality of social members.
2. Mass media has narrowed people's time and space while ignoring interpersonal relationships. Mass media, especially Internet and TV broadcasting, have transcended time and space, turned the vast world into a "global village" and enhanced understanding and communication between people. However, because most of people's leisure time is occupied by mass media, the communication between family members and the interaction between neighbors is less and less, and the personal communication between people is replaced by the communication between people and computers, and interpersonal relationships are becoming more and more indifferent, thus reducing social cohesion.
Three. Concluding remarks
There are positive and negative social functions, and mass media is no exception. Fully understanding and reasonably using the social control function of mass media, facing up to and effectively preventing the negative function of mass media and its negative influence on social control will help to better realize social control and promote the harmonious development of society. All this depends on a reasonable grasp of the development direction and law of mass media, a reasonable formulation of mass media policies and a scientific organization of mass media content.
Precautions:
135E A Ross: Social Control, translated by Qin Zhiyong and Mao Yongzheng, Huaxia Publishing House, 1989, p. 68, p. 96, p. 1 12.
② Wang Shudao: The Social Philosophical Implication of Social Control, Dongyue Forum, No.6, 2002.
④ Quoted from Fan Hao: Mass Media and Social Control, Press, Publication and Communication, No.5, 2000.
⑥ Zhou Xiaohong: Modern Social Psychology-A Study of Social Behavior from Multidimensional Perspectives, Shanghai People's Publishing House, 2002, p. 32 1 page.
⑦ Fan Hao: Mass Media and Social Control, Press, Publication and Communication, No.5, 2000.
⑧ See Lu Ye: Media Reality as a Modern Social and Cultural Situation —— On the Construction of Social Reality by TV Communication, Social Science, No.2, 1995.
Pet-name ruby: Principles of Political Science, Sun Yat-sen University Press, 200 1 Edition, page 8 17.
See Xia Fan: On the Misdirection of Mass Communication, Journal of Beijing Broadcasting Institute, No.6, 1997.
Lu [Japan] Inoguchi Takashi, [England] Edward Newman, [America] John Keane, ed. Democracy in Change, Jilin People's Publishing House, 1999, p. 1 17.