Ssthe Mass Society example essay topic

On The Way to the Mass Society In C. Wright Mills's article, ! SSThe Mass Society!" , he says our society that will eventually become a mass society, which Mills states that the society today is still public, but the! SS transformation of public into mass is particular concern to us, for it provides an important clue to the meaning of the power elite!" (23). According to Mills's article that public only exists in a small part of our society where! SS public communications are so organized that there is a chance immediately and effectively to answer back any opinion expressed in public!" and yet when it becomes into mass, the public opinion will just function like a one-way road (24). Besides Mills's statement about how the mass society has created the difficulties for the communication in the society, media that affects our daily life has also helped to push the society into mass, which Mills state that!

SS these media have helped less to enlarge and animate the discussions of primary publics than to transform them into a set of media markets in mass-like society!" (27). These media who guide peopled, ! Ssthe have provided us with a new identities and new aspirations of what we should like to be, and what we should like to appear to be!" (28). For this reason, a totalitarian society becomes our future because people's opinions are increasingly determined by the media; as Mills argued, ! SS Do people compare reports on public events or policies, playing one medium's content off against another? ...

The answer is no... We know that people tend strongly to select those media which carry contents with which they already agree!" (27). In other words those who can control the media can control the society. Not only have the media helped to push our society, but also the education system has supplied mass into our society, which Mills says the function of education shifted from the political to economic, which to train student: for better-paying jobs instead the knowledge of political for the society. Mill also states that!

SS not much doubt that modern regressive educators have adapted their notions of educational content and practice to the idea of the mass!" (30). Therefore, Mills concluded that at the top level of our society have emerged elite of power, and the middle levels of our society are unmar k and does not connect the top level and the bottom level of this society (30). Mills states that! SSthe bottom of this society is politically fragmented, and even as a passive fact, increasingly powerless: at the bottom there is emerging a mass society!" (30). No doubt that Mills's lucid statement about the society's merging to the mass are the reality; issues that he mentioned in the article about to how people and media had cause to push the society to mass are absolutely substantiated. At the same time media's affection on society is also an irresistible nature.

Even though media are strongly responsible for the occurrence of the mass society, but I like to point out that those media that Mills mentioned were those during the 50's. Today in our modern society, we have tremendous media that keep us informed of the rest of the world; one of these powerful ways of communication is cyberspace. Talking about cyberspace, there can be varieties of issues to be brought up, but I felt that online chat room would be one of the most interesting topics in this case. To most people's experience, online chat room has created a world where people can create their own personality characteristic as when chatting with other users. In this complex planet, earth, no one can be absolute equal to one another in reality; but in a cyber chat room is a new world which gives us an opportunity to relive in that world to chat and act the way we wanted to be. Well, if cyber chat room had existed back during Mills's era, will he consider this new world as a new road to democracy?

If so can cyber chat room replace the mass society to form our new public society? Or would Mills consider this cyber chat as a pointless fantasy? Even so, waiting for Mills's response for these questions would be fantasy, but in my personal opinion, cyber chatting would be something that Mills will credit into public as oppose to mass. If so, then what would Mills want to say about our legal prosecutors, who currently thinking about putting on restriction on the conversations by tracking those in the chat room. Thus cyber freedom of speech would no longer be free speech anymore. Mill, C. Wright.!

SSThe Mass Society. !" W 131 Course Reader. 2003 22-30.