NAEB Newsletter (Aug 1952)

formed to as part of one’s job and one's style of life, but now with a winking eye, for one knows that manipulation is inherent in every human contact. Men are es¬ tranged from one another as each secretly tries to make an instrument of the other, and in time a full circle is made: one makes an instrument of himself, and is estranged f rbm it also.” The so-called mass media are the sensitive foci of the manipulative process. And yet the influence they exercise is rather anonymous than explicitly authored. The imper¬ sonality of the managerial demiurge even obscures the nature of their power. ’’The problem is who really has power, for often the tangled and hidden system seems a complex yet organized irresponsibility*..Targets for revolt, given the will to revolt, are not readily available. Symbols in terms of which to challenge power are not available—in fact, there are no explicit symbols of authority to challenge Communications,' labor relations and political parties are identified by Mills as the three processes which play the largest parts in maintaining the white collar popula¬ tion as a going concern in the managerial demiurge. The areas of assertion and coun¬ ter-assertion are narrowed by the product of the mass media. A similar unreality is imparted to life by the monopolization of politics by the two major political parties Wiich narrows the range of alternative interprets!ons. In the economic-political arena of struggle, issues are narrowed by the labor-union-corporation struggle. The result is that the insecurities and strivings of the white collar class are inartic¬ ulate and finding no symbols to support, are ’’drained off by the distractions of amusement, the frenzied search for commodities, or turned in upon the self as busy little frustrations.” Those of us attached to the mass media in some fashion should note that Mills finds a larger degree of competitive entrepreneurship in the communications agencies than in other commercial sectors of society. For this there are several explanations. These agencies are new within the last generation and have not yet settled down into stable bureaucratic, rationalized organizations within known market boundaries. Moreover, these agencies supply most of the know-how of market research, public relations skills move in leap-frog fashion from film to firm and between the communications agencies and the general staffs of large commercial and indistrial establishments. ’’Competi- tion” between such entrepreneurs, however, lacks one essential element present in the vanished white collar world—namely the security *iiich property ownership once provid¬ ed. And this, as Mils remarks, is ’’one thing that makes Sairmjy run* tf The greater degree of competition in the mass media than in other segments of our society also may account, astigmatically, for a certain difficulty experienced within them in appreciating the organization and dynamics in the society at large. # -x- * -x- -x- * x- -x- -x- -x- x- -x- -x -x- -x # * -x- -x- -x- -x- -x- -x -x- -x -x -x -x -x- -x -x -x- -x- * -x ONE GOOD THING ABOUT A CONVENTION IN MINNEAPOLIS: THERE IS FIRST RATE TRANSPORTATION BOTH GOING AND COMING. NON STOP FOUR-MOTOR PLANE SERVICE FROM NEW YORK, DETROIT, CHICAGO, KANSAS CITY, AND SEATTLE; ONE STOP FROM WASHINGTON. NO CHAN® OF PLANES FROM NEW ORLEANS, HOUSTON, LOS ANGELES, AND SAN FRANCISCO. AND THERE ARE GOOD TRAINS TOOl IN THIS ISSUE Educational Television Before the FCC 1-6 News of NAEB . . . ...6-12 Research Report—Dallas Smythe • 1