RTV Theory and Practice - Special Issue

How can this democratization of public communication be implemented? The problem is a crucial one, not only for communicology but for the whole of self-management society. The author rightfully notes that a self-management model of public communication cannot be structured out of only one sphere of the social body, regardless of the components of this sphere. As we know, the initiative for transformation on self-raanagement lines of the mass media was taken by revolutionary social forces. However, without some serious thinking about communication, as well as knowiedgeable, scholarly analyses the aforementioned socio-political aspirations cannot be achieved. The author therefore proposes comprehensive engagement by the whole social community in building a new model of public communication in the self-management society. Creative practice in all spheres of social relations is responsible for arriving at and structuring information in the sense of its truth and usefulness and the advisability of its being made available to all members of the self-management socialist society. This means that the scientific, artistic and socio-political communities must be engaged to a greater degree in this sphere so that society may surmount a situation in which journalism is a singular kind of ideological opium for the people, as Магх defined this activity for all class societies. If this problem is solved, many others will also be solved in the sense of establishing a model of public communications on self-management lines, resting only on the authority of truth and rational arguments. M. Plenković’s whole book is actually a reply to the question of how to structure a model of public communications in a socialist society of self-management Avoiding voluntarism, which leads either to utopianism ог, worse, to old ways in new self-management clothing, the author says that modern mass media (radio, television, and the press) should be positioned in such a way that they serve and are a function of work and creativity, that is, the vital needs of all citizens. In contrast to the role of notifying and making public, discharged by the press in class societies, mass media in

143