Conceptual Analysis of Communication –The Concept of Mass is overcome
Dr. Lavina Madeira Ribeiro
Abstract
This is a theoretical essay regarding the relevance of the concept of mass used in the context of Communication
studies. Different aspects are considered: the recognition of the importance of the media in the formation of
identities, behaviors and sociability. The media institutions have a specific rationality here called referential
identity, which is able to potentially comprise other rationalities concerning spheres of knowledge, but also
performing other operations of strategic nature, derived from the presence of elements of daily circularity of
private life and of historical time. Its referential dynamic is selective, partial, transitory, risky, ephemeral, but at
the same time, reflective and identity. Therefore, the concept of mass is completely overcome. From a scientific
point of view, in analytical terms, the concept of mass is completely inoperable and it is an opaque wall that hides
fundamental attributes of the public of media messages and prevents the understanding of complex interactive
processes that occur between them. The concept of mass ignores the singularity, the ability of action and the
unique thoughts of each individual, the specificity of their existential trajectories and social networks, cultural
and political movements, and the needs and interventions that they undergo.
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