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Mass Media in a Mass Society: Myth and Reality
 
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Mass Media in a Mass Society: Myth and Reality (Hardcover)

by Richard Hoggart (Author)
4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Hardcover: 192 pages
  • Publisher: Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd. (12 Feb 2004)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0826472850
  • ISBN-13: 978-0826472854
  • Product Dimensions: 18.5 x 13.5 x 2.3 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 1,059,655 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
  • See Complete Table of Contents

Product Description

Product Description
Richard Hoggart, famous for his writings on literature, education, and the means of communication, and especially for his influential book The Uses of Literacy, has written a new work in which he looks at the ways in which mass communications in the twenty-first century both encourage and hinder greater understanding of the modern world. Hoggart takes a number of aspects of mass society today - celebrity worship, youth culture, broadcasting, and a decline in the proper use of language - and considers the paradox that the ready accessibility of information of all types does not automatically lead to greater comprehension of our world. Information itself is inert and only leads to knowledge if it has been ordered and assessed. He assesses the slow but uninterrupted dissolution of old beliefs, in particular the widespread corruption of language. He analyses the erosion of the traditional pillars of authority throughout a century and a half of sustained intellectual criticism of existing assumptions and beliefs, especially in the religious sphere. Throughout the book, he examines broadcasting as the prime disseminator of mass information. Hoggart makes an impassioned argument for Public Service Broadcasting in its truest form, and sees the Public Service ideal as coming increasingly under attack from today's BBC broadcasters. People who seem to believe that the overwhelming function of television today is to entertain.

About the Author
Richard Hoggart is a distinguished cultural critic and author of The Uses of Literacy, his most celebrated book. Formerly Professor of English at Birmingham he has sat on many government advisory committees and was Chairman of the National Book League.

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Customer Reviews

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Average Customer Review
4.5 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Not just a grumpy old man., 27 Feb 2004
By A Customer
Recently, I was asked if I had seen a programme on television called 'Grumpy Old Men'. I hadn't, but it was explained to me that, because of something that I had said about the misuse of a particular word, that I sounded like one of the participants in the programme. As a result of this, I found out when the programme was being transmitted and watched it. As some of you will possibly know, the programme trivialised and lampooned a series, of what might be considered by some, to be genuine concerns about various aspects of contemporary life in this country. In no way did the programme really seek to address any of those concerns as it was perceived as entertainment and after all, weren't they just concerns expressed by 'grumpy old men'; in others words, they can be dismissed as irrelevant.

If you value many of the things which appear to be disappearing from our culture; if you care and are concerned about the uses and misuses of language; if you care and are concerned about sponsorship in the arts and in education and, particularly in the light of a recently published report, commissioned by the Conservative Party, with proposals for the future of broadcasting and also in the light of the forthcoming review of the BBC's Royal Charter, if you care about the future of Public Service Broadcasting, then I recommend you read this book. In doing so, you will discover that, after all, you are not alone with your concerns as, in this book you will, in my opinion, find many of them elegantly articulated, discussed and explained within the context of our changing society. It is usual to say, 'I found it difficult to put the book down,' when referring to works of fiction. I would use it for this book!

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Worth Reading, If You Like To Think for Yourself, 12 April 2007
By J. Goddard "Jim Goddard" (Shipley) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This book is worth a few hours of anyone's time. Utilising his long life and extensive experience, Richard Hoggart provides an independent analysis of some of the ills of modern cultural life. His working-class background seems to provide some of the incentive to say what all-too-few middle and upper class intellectuals are willing to say, which is that much in modern culture deserves criticism and that giving people 'what they want' is often just an excuse for patronising them by assuming low aspirations. Hoggart takes aim at the BBC, at the advertising industry, at relativism, at politicians and at the press, amongst others. He notes both gains and losses in the past 60 years or so, but rightly concentrates on the negatives (there are far too many others puffing up modern cultural life, many of them busy making money from the credulous and ill-informed while they do so).

It has its weaknesses, though. It wouldn't be too much to ask, surely, for him to buttress his undoubted authority and good sense with some more independent factual evidence of the developments he discusses? 'Social Trends' and other sources of information are full of invaluable and easily available data that support and strengthen much of what he says. This would have helped him to reach out to a wider audience than those who already know and respect his work. The eclecticism is also a little diluting. The discussion of language use, for example, occasionally betrays personal irritation rather than coherent analysis and the discussion of the House of Lords and Quangos at the end weakens what was building up to a strong conclusion. One also gets the impression that he isn't familiar with important wider discussions on related themes. One thinks of the work of Neil Postman ('Amusing Ourselves to Death'), Marie Winn ('The Plug-in Drug') and Robert Putnam ('Bowling Alone'). I'd love to have seen Hoggart engage with those authors. This also points to the absence of any explicit discussion of the biggest issue at the heart of Hoggart's analysis, which is the almost total dominance of broadcasting, especially television, as a contemporary source of information and entertainment. Hoggart's cursory treatment of this issue makes some of what the says - for example, about the benefits of reading within families - appear to be quixotic when it is, of course, absolutely essential.

Still, Hoggart is a highly thoughtful and learned writer. This book may be less than it could have been, but it is an excellent read on an important set of issues. Hoggart writing at half-pace (he must now be a very old man, to be fair) is better than most writers at full, frenetic pelt. Give your brain a pep talk and knock it out of the grooves that the mass media persistently knock it back into.
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