The Death of Radio: an Analysis based on Mass Communication as a Political Economy and Culture

Saad Rana
ICMS

Abstract
Before the advent of television, radio was the form of broadcast medium to disseminate information to the masses. Broadcasters announced news, provided infotainment, as well as entertainment in the form of stories and shows with live audiences in the studio. This paper will look at radio as a form of mass communication, the proliferation of other types of broadcast media. The paper will try to understand the political economy of the industry and how it has become big business by analyzing Murdock and Golding's The Industrialization of Mass Communications. MacDonald's Theory of Mass Culture will be dissected to understand that although radio was a form of mass culture, it provided entertainment to the masses, which allows the economy to thrive.

Discussion
In their paper, 'The Industrialization of Mass Communications,' Murdock and Golding imply that mass communications—how people or organizations communicate to the masses—is a money-making industry, and like all other industries such as technological, auto etc.; it is susceptible to losing its value for what it was intended to be –a pure form of communicating to the masses. Their theory on mass communications focuses on the industry as a political economy which is how an economy cycles, questioning and arguing the ownership and control of media, factors that bring together media industries with other media platforms and with other industries, as in the concentration and vertical integration of IPC and Reed Group Limited. The theory of political economy states that media is an industry in which there is a cycle of commercialization, and when new technology – computers in the digital age, TV’s advanced, and data streaming – production becomes industrialized. It looks at the processes of concentration and consolidation which is how different forms of media industries merge to control and influence the content delivered to the masses, in the hands of a few large companies and thus commercializes the content. The concentration is developed through three interlinked processes: diversification, integration and internationalization (Murdock, G., Golding, P. (1973)).
Political economy of media includes the motive of profit sharing to obtain audiences and revenue (by way of advertisements), and its consequences for media practices and media content. They imply that commercialization, or introduction of a new “product,” in this case content delivered through a specific medium of media which, generates content that leads to mass culture; which according to MacDonald, is "a parasitic, a cancerous growth on High Culture,” (Murdock, G., Golding, P. (1973)).
Mass culture is the culture of ideas and values that develop from a common exposure to the same media, news sources, music, and art. MacDonald presumes that mass culture is manufactured and exploits popular tastes, from the homogenization of culture, or the blending of different cultures into a society affected by hypodermic syndrome-which entails to a zombie one-minded culture. According to MacDonald, new media and technology, such as the movies and television programs are manufactured to hit the minds of the masses and distributed in a way that all people would enjoy.
Integration, as mentioned above, is where one firm or business acquires businesses to extend control within a particular sector of media production in the case of horizontal integration. Golding and Murdock are saying that the merger occurs between similar companies to extend their control in different sectors. In the case of vertical integration, media companies merge with a company with interests in one stage of the production process to extend its operations to other stages to reduce its costs (Murdock, G., Golding, P. (1973)). In the case of magazine and newspaper publisher IPC merging with Reed Group Limited, an international company which had interests in wood, pulp, papers and newsprint (raw materials), the newly formed Reed International Limited reduced its costs and maximized its profits. Reed Group Limited provided resources and raw materials to companies such as IPC. IPC took the opportunity to merge with the company and to control and reduce their costs of production. A modern example is how Facebook, a tech giant, acquires smaller companies for their interest and to maximize their profits. For example, with the vertical integration of Instagram and WhatsApp into Facebook, their content is extended and they control what the masses view. In addition, their user base increases, which in turn leads into profits from advertising and content marketing.
A media company, through diversification, enables a company to expand its resources and take ownership of smaller companies in different sectors. In case one sector of a company faces loss, their net value will not be dramatically affected. In this case, Apple, another giant tech company is diversified into different industries, including smartphones, computers/laptops, application stores, and accessories for these products. While their forte is in smartphones and laptops, these businesses are cushioned by several diversified businesses. Murdock and Golding further tie in with which MacDonald says that "business enterprise found a profitable market in the cultural demands of the newly awakened masses."
One clear modern day example which illustrates their theory, is the example of Interflow Communications, a large advertising agency in Pakistan, and their subsidiaries. The advertising agency began in the early 80's. With the financial backing, the firm capitalized on the increase of satellite news channels and branched out with a multi-media communications wing, Airwaves Media, in the early 90's, initiating News One as well as their sister channel TvOne Global. While News One focuses solely on news, TvOne Global is a pure entertainment channel with soaps, dramas and serials. This concentration and horizontal integration of advertising and broadcasting allowed Interflow Group to disseminate content backed by financiers and revenue generated from advertisements developed by Interflow Communications. As explained by Golding and Murdock, big companies are schematically interconnected through joint investments, shareholders and interlocking directorships (Murdock, G., Golding, P. (1973)), the entire group controls every aspect. Murdock and Golding's theory is further explained by the internalization of the satellite channels of Airwaves Media. The third aspect of concentration, internationalization, expands into foreign markets (Murdock, G., Golding, P. (1973)). In 2009, Airwaves Media launched their TVOne Global channel in the United States.
What's more interesting is that the group stretches its limits to the radio industry with the advent of FM 91 in 2005. While radio had always been a major form of mass communications, content generated programming, and audience tuning in to shows with radio jockey's entertaining, it has shifted to a more commercialized industry, resulting in big business. Although radio is a small industry, it has, nonetheless, garnered its share of revenue in the form of 30-second airtime advertisements for a business.
If we look back in the early 30's and 40's, radio programming was entirely about an announcer providing content. Commercials were less and sometimes rare, with the radio announcer providing a short "this is brought to you by.." In the modern age, when we turn on the radio, it seems commercials have taken over the airwaves. Studios are fixated on bringing big money to the tables with commercial breaks that can last up to 10 minutes. Programming seems to work around breaks, while in the olden days, commercials and advertisements worked around programming and shows.
As a culture pundit, Dwight Macdonald joined a liberal, even radical, position with social conservatism and elitism, two components of his idea which are showed in his 1957 "A Theory of Mass Culture.” In discussing a hypothesis of mass society, Macdonald communicates his social conservatism in stressing over the statue and eventual fate of the achievements made by western society and high craftsmanship in the twentieth century. Macdonald sees pop culture as a danger to high culture with its wide flow of shallow substance.
Macdonald opens his hypothesis of mass society by expressing that he leans towards high culture rather than pop or mass culture, famously alluding to the broad utilization of a social item that can be of good quality (like Mozart of Tolstoy). Mass society, in any case, is in Macdonald's eyes identified with nature of society in industrialized social orders. Maintaining an unmistakable perspective, Macdonald sees the industrialized society as one in which conventional social structures, for example, the group broken down just to be supplanted by a mass society of commonly distanced people.
Mass society, for Macdonald, is the way of life of mass society, which is portrayed by obscenity, kitsch (low-brow style of mass-produced art or design using popular or cultural icons to gain popular appeal), homogeneity and institutionalization. These qualities position mass society in Macdonald's perspective contrary to the refine nature and differences of high culture. Mass society's gigantic force is debilitating high culture which can't contend with mass society's prominence.
Macdonald contends that mass society is society that is created by a procedure taking after industry, and showcased to individuals in mass society, which he views as atomistic and ailing in conventional thoughts of group. Mass society is by and large unsophisticated, homogenized, and institutionalized, instead of high culture, which was more advanced and nuanced. It ought to be noticed that high culture could be famous also, as, for instance, Beethoven or Mozart.
The greatest distinction between the two, other than the modernity that Macdonald saw as plainly obvious in high culture, was the way that mass society was intentionally made to speak to mass society. It was, he said, "solely and directly an article for mass consumption, like chewing gum" (Macdonald, D. (1953)). He likewise separates between mass society and "folk culture," which he describes as "a spontaneous, autochthonous expression, shaped by themselves (Macdonald, D. (1953))."
Mass culture, on the other hand, was "imposed from above." "It was fabricated by technicians hired by businessmen; its audiences are passive consumers, their participation limited to the choice between buying and not buying. The Lords of kitsch, in short, exploit the cultural needs of the masses in order to make a profit and/or to maintain their class rule." (Macdonald, D. (1953))"

Conclusion
Mass society could be an instrument of entrepreneur social orders, as MacDonald's quote proposes, however it was additionally utilized by despots, including comrade tyrants, to propagate their energy, or "class run the show." His scrutinize is best comprehended in its setting. Macdonald wrote amidst the development of TV, radio, well known music, fast food, and other social changes that brought about much tension for educated people. While there is some agreement with MacDonald's Theory of Mass Culture, I digress to state that content for the masses is what propels businesses. The "elite," are different in different culture. Where the elite in the United States may mean the cultured or big money individuals, the elite in Pakistan seem to be those who have big money. Nonetheless, the elite in any culture or country are a small proportion of the population, not enough for industrialization of media as an industry, which Murdock and Golding imply. The economy of a state is run by employment, and media creates jobs. While I understand MacDonald's point of view that mass culture creates a division of labor with the advance of new technology, without the labor and creation of new jobs, the economy will not flourish.
However, with the commercialization of radio, the industry seems to have died out from what it was initially: a form of entertainment with shows and programming geared with announcers disseminating information for more than two minutes at a time.

Bibliography
(Murdock, G., Golding, P. (1973). The industrialization of mass communications. For a political economy of mass communications, 201-215)

(Macdonald, D. (1953). A Theory of Mass Culture. Diogenes, 1-17)