RTV Theory and Practice - Special Issue

power structure , and defining its main goal as that of perpetuating the existing social onder . We call it "uniformistic communication" precisely because most mainstream , national broadcasting systems have performed this centripetal function in society , seeking to "define" or "construct" reality (cf , Hall, 1903; Vreg , 1985) so as to "propagate and re-present the dominant class ideology" (Fiske, Hartley, 1984: 89), the goal being to reproduce the social order and draw the auđience into the mainstream culture, values and ideology. The American system of commercial broadcasting, which - though structurally decentralized and pluralistic - still plays very much the same roie in society (Kletter , Hirschorn, Hudson, 1977; 30; Thomas , 1986), might be described as a polycentric system of unif ormistic communication . AIl of this suggests the existence of effective mechanisms of political, ideological pr economic control over radio’s operation exercised ру the power structure and built into the institutional anđ organization arrangements of its ope>ation . These mechanisms - which ensure that the fundamental role played in society by mainstream national media systems operating on the basis of different press theories is basically very similar - might, from a strictly practical point of view , be regarded as more important in đetermining the social goals and implications of broadcast media J s operation than the press theories theories themselves . In what is now a well-known story , the spread of television in the fifties and sixties coincided with fast and comprehensive social change , creating a need for a change in patterns of media operation. Radio was able to respond to that. In varying degrees , three processes of change began to transform rađio and - to a lesser extent, and with some delay - also television; - specialization; - đecentralization; - anđ democratization . These processes - which necessitated a new look at the concept of 'mass communication' (Jakubowicz, 1985) - can all be saiđ to have sprung from a rejection of the monocentric system of uniformistic communication and above all the pattern of social orgamzation that prođuced it and which It was designeđ to mamtam .