i;•

•.. .
j
>',i'

CHAPTERl
Carey, James. "A Cultural Approach to Communication."
Communication as Culture: Essays on Media and Society.
Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1989.
· A Cultural A.pprqach to
Committtica.t'ian ·

When I decided some years ago to read serrollSly the liter&'

true :of communicatioris} a wise man suggested l'begm With
1

john Dewey; It was advice! have never 1'egteited ~g; .

Although there ate limitations to 1D0My-J6 ¥~' sty:Je;
·' was· described ~Y Williarh James as daWI~~if;.,'a
depth ·to his wtir~ a natural exeess · eotn~ \to~;~
millds,•thit offers·permanent ;.aoinp~, ,,aJW•J!~es
-over which to puzzle-L-Aiurely .oometning . . .t 1~1ri&st
of our .titeratilre. • ,,
Dewey :opens an important:dmpter in E.xpetimee tmd: NrM'Ure
with the--~- preposterous'daim that;'1of all: thing!
communication- is ·the· most 1 .iwonderful'~ .(1'939:. 385).··What
could heha•e·meant h¥ that?-· If we mterpret the sentence• ·
1

U«e:rally,'itmust be either fake.or immdane. Surely most

0£· the news anlli ~tertaimnent>W«Hreceive thmugh <the'
mass media>are of -·the order that: 1'N:neal!l predict-1 sfot
1

the .internatio:Ahl telegtaph: "the• inteDigerim'. that,~·

Adelaide had the 'whooping' eough:t' A daily vimt ~
the-New Yo$· TimeJ·is not· qriite so trivial,..tkoup: . iti~
an experience more depressing than wonderful.. ~->·
most of ·ane's ·encou:ntef$; with ·Dthers are:r wondriftltr~
1

m, moments•· Gf .exressfve'';masochism. Dewey's -~~

by afty reasonable ~timl, is either false to ev.y. . .
experience or'Siinply mundane ifhe means only that €Wl some
occasions communication· is satisfying and rewarding. \.
, In anothenplace ·Dewey llfms an •equally enigMatk
comment &n communioation: 'fSociety. e>Cists not only ,'by

13
 COMMUNICATION AS CULTURE A CULTURAi, APPROACH TO COMMUNICATION

transmission, by communication, but it may fairly be said a transmission view of oommunication and a ritual view of
to exist in transmission, in communication" (Dewey, 1916: communication.
5). What is . the signi(icance of .the shift in prepositions? 1 The transmission view .Of oomm1lllication. is the common-
Is Dewey claiming that ,societies distribute information, est i:tt ·our cultur~perhaps itl all industrial tultures--and
1

to speak rather too anthropomorphically, and that by such dominates contemporary dicti<>nafy entries. under the term.
transactions and the chann'els of communication peculiar to It is defined by terms sudt as "imparting/' '~sending.,''
them society is made possible? That is certainly a reasonable transmitting,,, or gtVing information to others." It js. formed
II II

claim, but we hardly need social scientists and philosophers from· a metaphor of geography or transportation, In the
to tell us so. It reminds me of Robert Nisbet's acid remark nineteenth centUry but to a lesser extent today, the move-
that if you need sociologists to inform you whether or not you ment 'of goods or people and the movement of information
have a ruling class, you surely don't. But if this transparent were seerr as ·essentially· identical processes and both were
interpretation is rejected, are there any guarantees that after described by the common noun "communicatiort. The 4
'

peeling away layers of semantic complexity anything more tenter.· of this idea of communication is the trailsmission
substantial will be revealed? of signals or messages over- distance' for the purpa8e of
I think there are, -for the body of Dewey's work reveals controh ltis a view of communkatiort 'that derives ~om one
a substantial rather than. a pedestrian intelligence.· Rather of th'e most ancient of human dreams: the d~sire to :increase
than quoting him ritualistically· (for the lines I have cited the speed and effect of messages as they ~avet ·in" spMle;
regularly•appear without comment or interpretation in.the From the time upper and rower Egypt• were uriflied tmder
literature of communications), we would be better advised the· First Dynasty down tprough ·the m•~n of W ·tel~
to untangle.this underlyi11g complexity for the light it might graph, transportation and communicatioft ~ inieprraMy ·
cast upon contemporary. studies. I think this complexi.ty linked. ·Although messages might be cei\b'ally~1 zmd
derives from Dewey's use of communication in two quite ccmtrolled; through ·monopolizatfort of writing orthe 'rapid
different senses. He understood. better than most. of us production of ~rint, these messages, carried in ·t.he h&nds
that communication has had .two contrasting definitiOns in of a· meSSE!rtger <Jr between tht'.!. bindings of a boak, still had
the history of Western thought, and he used. the conflict to be distributed, if they were to have their desired· effect,
between these definitions as a source of creative .tension by !rapid_ transpartation. The. telegraph ended the identity
in his work. This same conflict led him, not surprisingly, but did not destroy the;metaphor~ Our basic orientation· to
into some· of his characteristic errors. Rather than blissful~ communication remains grounded, at the deepest roots 1of
ly repeating his insights or urtconsdously duplicating his our thi~king, in the idea. of transmission: cbmmunicaticm :.is
1

errors:, we might extend his thought by seizing upon the a process wh:eteby'messages are transmitted artd distributed
same contradiction he perceived in our use of the term in space for the·contt!Ol of distance and people.a
"communication" and use it in tum as a device for vivifying 1 said this vie'W originated: in religion, tkough the foregoing
our studies. sentences seem more indebted to politics1 eednomie&,, and
Two alternative conceptions. of communication have been technology. Nonetheless, the roots ofthe trartsmissiOO ~
alive.. in American culture since, this term entered .common of communication, in our culture at least, lie in· essentially
discourse in. the nineteenth century. Both definitions derive, religious attitudes; 1 tan illustrate this by a devious tho6.~;
as with much in secular culture, from religious. origins, in detail, inadequate path.
though ...they.• refer to somewhat ... different regions of reli- . In· its modem· dress' the transmissfon view .of commurti.:.
gious experience. We might.label these descriptions, if only cation arises, as the Oxford £nglish ·Dictionaty will attest, at
to provide handy. pegs upon which to hang our thought, the onset of the age of explOl'ation and discovery. We have

14 15
 COMMUNICATION.AS CULTURE A CULTURAL APPROACH TO COMMUNICATION

been reminded rather too often that the motives. behind this divinely inspired for the purposes of spreading the Christian
vast movement in space were political and mercantilistic. message·farther and faster, eclipsing time and transcending
Certainly those motives were present, but their importance space, saving the heathen, bringing closer and making more
should not obscure the equally compelling fact that a major probable the day of salvation. As the century wore 0n and
motive behind this movement in space, particularly as evi- religious thought was increasingly tied to applied science,
denced by the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa or the new technology ·of communication came to· be seen as
the Puritans in New England, was religious. The desire to the ideal device for the conquest of space and populations.
escape the boundaries of Europe, to create a new life, to Our most distinguished student .of these matters, Perry
found new communities, to carve a New Jerusalem out of Miller, has commented:
the woods of Massachusetts, were primary motives behind
the unprecedented movement of white European civiliza- The unanimity (among Protestant sects), which might at'
tion over virtually -the entire globe. The vast and, for first dght seem wholly supernatural, was wrought by the
the first time, democratic migration in space was above all telegraph and the press. These conveyed· and published "the
an attempt to trade an old world for a new and represented thrill of Christian sympathy, with the tidings qf ab(:>unqing
the profound belief that movement in space could be in grace, from multitudes in every city 1:1imultaneously as1:1em-
l>led, in effect almost bringing a natiol\ .. together in one
itself a redemptive act. It is a belief Americans have never
praying intercourse." Nor could it be only fortuitous thatthe
quite escaped. movement should coincide with the Atlantic Cable, for both
Transportation, particularly when it brought the Christian were harbingers ,;of that which is the forerunner of ~ltintate
community of Europe into contact with the heathen commu· spiritual victory . . . ." The awakening of 1858. first made
nity of the Americas, was seen as a form of communication vital for the American imagination a realizable program of a
with profoundly religious· implications. This movement in Christianized technology. (Miller, 1965: 91)
space was an attempt to establish and extend the kingdom
of God, to create the conditions under which godly under- Soon, as the forces of science and secularization gained
standing might be realized, to produce a heavenly though ground, the obvious religious metaphors fell away and the
still terrestrial city. technology of communicati0n itself moved to the· center
The moral meaning of transportation, then, was the estab- of thought. Moreover, the superiority of communication
lishment and extension of God's kingdom on earth. The over transportation was assured by the observation of one
moral meaning of communication was the same. By the nirieteen!!t century commentator that the telegraph was
middle of the nineteenth century the telegraph broke the important because it involved not the mere "modification
identity of communication and transportation but also led of matter but the transmission of thought." Communication
a preacher of the era, Gardner Spring, to exclaim that we was viewed as a ·process and a technology that would,
were on the "border of a spiritual harvest because. thought sometimes for religious purposes, spread, transmit,· and
now travels by steam and magnetic wires" (Miller, 1965: 48). disseminate knowledge, ideas, and information farther and
Similarly, in 1848 "James L.·Batcheldi!r could declare that the faster with the goal of controlling space and people.
Almighty .himself had constructed the railroad for missionary There were disseriters, of course, and I have already
purposes and, as Samuel Morse. prophesied with the first quoted Thoreau's disepchanted remark on the telegraph.
telegraphic message, the purpose of .the invention was not More pessimistically, John C. Calhoun saw the ''subjugatiOJ;l
to spread the price of pork but to ask the question 'What of electricity to the mechanical necessities of man . . .
Hath God Wrought?"' (Miller, 1965: 52). This new technology (as) the last era in human civilization" (quoted in Miller,
entered American discussions not as a mundane fact but as 1965: 307). But the dissenters were few, and the transmission

16 17
 COMMUNICATION AS CULTURE A CULTURAL Al'PROACM TO COMMUNICATION

view of communication, albeit in .increasingly secularized cultural world that .can serve· as a control. and container for
and scientific form, has dominated our thought and culture human action.
since t~at time. Moreover, as can be seen in contemporary This. view luls also been shorn of its explicitly religious
popular commentary and even. in technical discussions origins, ·but it has never completely escaped its metaphoric
of new communications technology, the historic religious root. Writers in this tradition often trace their heritage, in
1,1ndercurrent has never been eliminated from our thought. part, to Durkheim's Elementary .forms of. Religious Life and
From the telegraph .to the computer the same sense of pro- to the argument stated elsewhere that "society substitutes
found possibilify' for moral improvement is present whenever for the world revealed to· our senses a· different world that
these machines are invoked. And we need not be reminded is a projection of the ideals created by the C(>mmunity"
of the regularify' with which improved communication is (1953: 95). This projection of communify' ideals and their
invoked by an army of teachers, preachers, and columnists embodiment in material form--dance, ·plays, architecture,
as the talisman of all our tro.ubles. More controversially, news stories, strings of speech--....aeates an artificial thQugh
the same root attitudes, as I can only assert here rather nonetheless real symbolic order that operates to provide not
than demonstrate, are at work in most of our scientifically information but confirmation, not to alter attitudes.or change
sophisticated views of communication. minds. but to represent an underlying order of thia.gs,. not
The ritual view of communication, though a minor thread to perform functions but to manifest .an ongoing and fragile
in our national thought, is by far the older of those view~ld social process.
enough in fact for dictionaries to list it ·under "Archaic." In The ritual view of communication 1 has not been a doqri~
. a ritual definition, communication is linked .to terms such nant motif in American scholarship. Our thoug~t.and work
as "sharing," "participation," "association," ''fellowship," have been glued to a transmission view of OOm:PlQttication
and "the possession of a common faith." This definition because this view is congenial with. the underlying well.:-
exploits the ancient identity and common roots of the terms springs of American culture, sources that Seed into .o:u:r
"oomn:ionness," "communion," "communify'," and "com- scientific life as well as. our common, public understandings.
munication." A ritual view of communication is directed There is an irony in this. We have .not explored the ritu.al
not toward the extension of messages in space but toward view of communication because the concept of culture is
the maintenance of sociefy' in time; not the act of imparting such a weak and evanescent notion in American· social
information but the representation of shared beliefs. thought. We understand that other people have c.ulture in
If the archery-pal case of communication under a trans:- the anthropological sense and we regularly record it-often
mission view is the extension of messages across geography mischievously and patronizingly. But. when WE?· turn critical
for the purpose of control, the archery-pal case under a ritual attention to American culture the concept dissolves into
view is the sacred ceremony that draws persons together in a residual category useful only when psychological and
fellowship and commonalify'. sociological data are exhausted. We realize that the under•
The indebtedness of the ritual view of communication to privileged ·live in a culture of poverfy', use the oo.tion .'0£
religion is apparent in the name1 chosen to label it. Moreover, middle~class culture as an epithet,, and. occasionally applaud
it derives from a view of religion that downplays the role of our high and generally scientific culture. But the nation of
the sermon, the instruction and admonition, in order to high~ culture is not a hard-edged term of intellectual discourse.
light the role of the prayer, the chant, and the ceremony. It for domestic purposes. This intellectual aversion to the idea
sees the original or highest manifestation of communication of culture derives in part from our obsessive individuali$m,
not in the transmission of intelligent information but in the which makes psychological life the paramount realify'; from
construction and maintenance of an ordered, meaningful our Puritanism, which leads to disdain for the significance

18 19
 COMMUNICATION ASOJLTURE A CULTURAL APPROACH TO COMMUNICATION

of human activity that is not practical and ·work oriented; of violence on the ,campus. evokes their class antagonisms
and from our isolation of science from culture: science and resentments. The model here is not that ·Of information
provides culture.;free truth. whereas. culture provides ethno- acquisition, thoilgh such acquisiti6n occurs, but of dramatic
centric error. · action in which the reader joins a world of contending forces
Consequently, when looking for scholarship that empha- as an observer at a play. We do no.t encounter questions
sizes the central role of culture and a ritual view of commu- about the effect -0r functions of me~sages as such, but the
nication, one must rely heavily on European sources or upon role of presentation and involvement in the structuring of the
Americans .deeply influenced by·· European scholarship. As reader's life and time. We recognize, as with religious rituals,
a result the opportunities for misunderstanding are great. that news changes little and yet is intrinsically satisfying; it
Perhaps, then, some of the difference between a transmission performs few functions yet is habitually consumed: Ne-yvs-
and. a ritual, view of·· communication can be grasped by papers do not operate as a source of effects or functions
briefly looking at alternative conceptions of the role of the but as dramatically satisfying, which is not to ·say pleasing,
newspaper .in ·social life. presentations of what the world at root is. And it is in this
If one examines a newspaper under a transmission view role-that of a text---.that a newspaper is seen;. like a Balinese
of communica.tion, one• sees the medium as an instrument cockfight, a Dickens novel, an Elizabethan drama, a student
for disseminating news and knowledge, some.times divertisse- rally, it is a presentation of reality that gives life an overall
1
ment, in larger and larger· packages over greater distances. form, order, and tohe. · •

Ques.tions arise as to the effects of thi.s on audiences: news as Moreover, news is a historic reality. It is a form of culture
enlightening. or obscuring reality, as changing or hardening invented by a particular class at a particular point of histo-
attitudes, as breeding credibility or doubt. Questions also are ry-in this case -by the middle class- largely in the· eighteenth
raised concerning the functions of news and tht? newspaper: century. Like arty invented cultural form, trews both· forms
Does it maintain the integration of society or its maladaption? and reflect_s a particular "hunger for experience," a desire
Does it function or misfunction to maintain stability or pro- to do away with the epic, heroic, and traditional irt favor: of
mote the instability of personalities?· Some such mechanical the unique, original, novel, new-rtews. This "hunger" itself
analysis normaUy accompanies a 'ttransmission" argument. has a history grounded in the changing style and fortunes of
A ritual view of communication will focus on a -different the middle class.and.as such does not represent a· unive~l
range of problems in examining a newspaper. It will, for taste or necessarily legitimate· form .of knowledge, (P<J.rk,
example, view reading a newspaper less as sending or gain- 1955: 71...88)-but an. invention in historical time, that like
ing information and more as attending a·mass, a situation in most other human inventions, will dissolve when the class
which nothing new is learned but in which a .particular view that sponsors it and its possibility of having significance for
of the world is portrayed and con.firmed. News reading, and us evaporates.
writing, is a ritual act and moreover a dramatic one. What Urtder a ritual view, then, news is not imorntation .but.
is arrayed before the reader is not pure information but Cl drama. It does not describe.the world but portrays anarenaof
portrayal of the-contending forces in the world. Moreover, dramatic forces and action; it exists solely in historicaVti:me;
as readers make their way through the paper/ they ,engage and it invites our participation on the basi:oi of our assuming;.
in a continual shift of roles or of dram~tic focus. A story often vicariously, social roles within it. 3
on the monetary crisis salutes them as American patriots Neither of these counterposed views of communication rte 1

fighting those ancient enemies Germany and Japan; a story cessarily denies whafthe other affirms. A ritual view d0es not
on the meeting of the women's political caucus casts them exclude the processes of information transmission or attitude
into the liberation movement as supporter or opponent; a tale change.It merely contends that one cannot urtderstand these

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 COMMUNICATION AS CULTIJRE A CULTURAL APPROACH TO COMMUNICATION

processes aright except insofar as they are cast within an es- The transmission view of communication has dorttinated
sentially ritualistic view of comnrunication and social order. Ameriean thought since the 1920s. When I fiist came into
Similarly, even writers indissolubly wedded to, the transmis- this field I felt that this view of communication, expressed
sion view of communication must include some notion, such in behavioral and functional terms, was exhausted. 1t·had
as Malinowski's phatic communion, to attest however tardily become academic: a repetition of past ach~evement, a dem-
to the place of ritualaction in social life. Nonetheless, in intel- onstration of the indubitable; Although it led to solid achieve-
lectual matters origins determine endings, and the exact point ment, it could no longer go forward without disastrous
at which one attempts to unhinge the problem of communi- intellectual and social consequences. I felt it was necessary
cation largely determines the path the analysis can follow. to reopen the an~ysis, to reinvigorate it with the tension
The power of Dewey's work derives from his working found in Dewey's work and, above all, to go elsewhere
over these counterpoised views of communication. Com• into biology, theology, anthropology, and literature for some
munication is "the most wonderful" because it is the basis intellectual material with which we might escape the tread-
of human fellowship; it produces the social bonds, bogus or mill we were running.
not,· that tie men together and make associated life possible.
Society is possible because of the binding forces of shared
information circulating in an organic system. The following
quotation reveals this tension and Dewey's final emphasis on
a ritual view of communication:
/ II
There is more than a verbal tie between the words common, But where does one tum, even proVisionally, fot the
community, and communication. Men live in a community resources with which to get a fresh perspective on commu:.
in virtue of the things \Vhich they have in common; and com-
munication. is the way .in which they come to possess things
nication? For me at least the resources were found by going
in co~mon. What they ~ust have in common .... are aims, back to the work of Weber, Durkheim, de TocqueVille, and
beliefs, aspirations, knowledge-a common understanding-:- Huizinga, as well as by ,utilizing. contemporaries such as
likemindedness as ·sociologists say. Such things. cannot be Kenneth Burke, Hugh Duncan, Adolph Portman, .Thomas
passed physiCally from one to another like bricks; they can- Kuhn, Peter Berger, and Gifford Geertz. Basically, however,
not be shared as persons would share a pie by dMding it into the most viable though still inadequate tradition of social
physical pieces· . . . . Consensus demands communication thought cm communication comes from those colleagues
(Dewey, 1916: 5'-6). and deseendants pf Dewey in the Chicago School: from
Mead and Cooley through Robert Park and on to Ervirig
Dewey was, like the rest of us, often untrue to his own Goffman.
thought. His hopes for the future often overwhelmed· the From such ·sources one can draw a definition of com:.
impact of his analysis. Ah! "the wish is father to the thought." munication of disarming simplicity yet, I think, of some
He came to evervalue scientific information and commu- intellectual power and scope: communication is a srmbolic
nication technology as a solvent to social problems and a process whereby reaUty is produced, maintained,, repaired,
source of social bonds. Nonetheless, the tension between and transformed.
these views can still open a range of significant problems Let me attempt to unpack that long first clause empha-
in communication for they not only represent different sizing the symbolic production of reality.
conceptions of communication but correspond to partiCU.lar One of the major problems one encounters in talking
historical periods, technologies, and forms of Social order. 4 about communication is that the noun refers to the most

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 COMMUNICATION AS.CULTURE A CULTURAL APPROACH TO COMMUNICATION

common, mundane huma~ experience ..There is ttuth in information gap,· this sertse of the problematic, . often can
Marshall McLuhan's asserijon that t,he one thing. of which be inducea only by ~ivestirtg life of its mundane trap•
the fish iS unaware is water, the very medium t}lat forms its pings and exposing ~ut common sense or scientific as-
ambience and supports its existence. Simi.lady, communic-a':" sumptions to an ironic light that makes the phenornerion
tion,.through language and~ other symbolic foJ;:ms, coll).prises strange. . .
the ambience of human exiStenc:e. The activities we collec- To a certain though inadequate degree, my first clattse
tively ca~ communication~havittg ~onversations, giving attempts just tha:t. 'Both our ·comm.on ·sense and scieritffic
insttuctions,. imparting knowledge, shatjllg significant ideas, realism attest to the fact that there is, 'first, a real world
seeking information, entertainkl.g and being entertainec\.,--,-are of objects, eventS; and processes that we observe. Second,
so ordinary and munciane that it is difficult for them to arrest there is language or symbols that name these· events in: the
our attention. Moreover, when we intellectually visit this real world and create more or less adequate descriptions of
process, we often focus on the trivial aml unproblematj.c, them. There is reality and then, after the fact, our accounts
so inured are we to the mysterious and awesome .in com- of it. We insist there is a .distinction between' reality and
municati9n. fantasy; we insist th'.at our terins stand in relatiort to this world
A wise man once defined the purpose of art as "making the as shadow and substance. While Iahguage often distort$, ob-
phenomenon strange." Things can become so familiar that fuscates, artd confuses our perceptiort of this external 'World,
we .no longer perceive them at all. Art, however, can take we rarely' dispute this rn'atter•of-fact realism. We peel away
the sound of the sea, the intonation of a voice, the texture semantic layers of terms and ineanirigs to uncover this more
of a fabric, the. design of a face, the play of light upon a substantial domain of existence. Language stands· to ·reality
landsc;ape, and w~ei:tci) these ordinary phenomena out of the as secondary stands to primary irt the old Galilean· patadigffi
backdrop of' existepce and force them into the foreground from which this view derives. · ·· ·
of consideration. When Scott. Fitzgerald described. Daisy By the first clause I mean to invert this relationship,
' Buchanan .as having "a .voice full . of money" he moves not to make 'any large metaphysieal claims but rather,
us, if we are open to. the experience, to hear again that by reordering the relation of· communication to reality, to
ordit:iary thing, .the sound of. a voice, and to contemplate render communication a far more problematic activity than
what it portends. He arrests our apprehension and foe-uses it ordinarily seems.
it: on the, mystery. of character as revealeq in sound. I want to suggest, to play on the Gospel of St. John, that
Similarly, the social sciences can take .the most. ob~pus in the beginning was the word; words ate not the names
yet background facts of social life and force thell\ into for things but, to steal a line from Kenneth· Burke, thi.ngs
the foregrouncl of wonderment. ·They can make. us con.., are the signs of words. Reality is not given, not humanly exist-
template the particular miracles of, .social life that ha.ve ent, independent of language and toward which language
become for us just there, plain and unproblematic for the stands as a pale refraction. Rather, reality is 'brought into
eye to see. When he comments that communication is existence, is produced, by communication-by~ in short,
the inost wonderful. all)ong things, .surely Dewey is trying the consttuction, apprehension, and utilization of sym~e}i~
just that: to induce in us a capacity for. wonder and awe forms;5 · Reality, while not .a mere function ·of symbOlic
regarding this commonplace activity. Dewey. knew tJ:lat forms, is produced by terministic system~r by humans
knowledge. most effectively. grew at the point when. thi~s who produce such system~that focus its existence iit
became problematic, when we experience an "information specific terms. ' ·
gap" between what circurp.stances impelled us toward doing Under the sway of realism we ordinarily assume there is
and what we neected to know in order .to act at all. This an order to existence thaf the human mind through some

24 25
 COMMUNICATION :AS CULTURE A CULTURAL AJ;'PRQACH TO COMMUNICATION

faculty may discover and describe. I am suggesting that these points might as well be, as the saying goes, a trackless
reality is not there to discover in any significant detail. The desert. What does one do in such a si.tuation?
. world is entropic-tha~. is,, not strictly ordered-though its There are·. a. number of options. One might let the child
variety is constrajned enough .that the mind can grasp its discover the route by trial and error, correcting him as
outline and implant an order over. and within the broad and . he goes, in faithful imitation of a conditioning experiment.
elastic constraints of nature. To put it colloqui;;tlly, there are One might have the child follow an adult, as I'm told .the
no lines of latitude and longitude in nature, but .by overlay- Apaches do, "imprinting" the route cm the. ch.ild; However,
ing the globe with this partjcuJar, tho,ugh not exclusively the ordinary·· me~od is simply. to draw the ch.ild a map.
correct, symbolic organizatioq, order. is imposed on spatial By arranging lines, angles, names, squ<1.res den,oting str~ts
organization and certain, limited. human: purposes .served. and buildings in a pC1ttern on paper, one transforms vac~nt
Whatever reality might be on the mind of.Bishop aerkeley' s space into a featured. environment. Although ,some envi-
God, whatever it mighLbc:! for ot.her animals, it is for us ronments are easier to feature than. others-hence trackless
a vast production, .a staged qeation-something humanly deserts-space is understood and manageable when i~ is
produced and humanly maintained. Whatever order is in represented. in symbolic form.
the world is ;not given in our ge:n.es or .exclusively supplied The map .stands as a representation of an environment
by nature. As the biologist J. Z. Young puts it, "the brains of capable of clarifying .a problematic situation. It is c<1.pable
each. one of us does literally create his or her. own world" of guiding behavior and simultaneously transforming undif-
(1951: 61); the order of hist<:>ry is~ as Eric Vogelin puts it, "the ferentiated space into configured-that is, knownr appre-
history of order"-:-:-the myriad forms in which people. have hended, understood-space.
endowed significance, order,. and meaning in the world by Note also that an environment, any given space, can be
the agency of their own intellectual processes. mapped in a number of different modes. For ~xample, we
Eq\st Cassirer said it, and others have repeated it. to the might map a particularly important space by pro4ucing a
point of deadeni~g its significance: man lives.in a ;new dimen- poetic or music<d description. ·As in the song that goes, in
sion of reality, symbolic reality, and it js through ijl.e agency part; "first you tum it to the left, then you tum it. to the
of this capacity that exist~nce is produced. f!owever, thQUgh right,"· a spac;e cal;\ be mapped by a stream of poetic -speech
it is often said, it is rarely investigated. More than repeat that expresses a .spatial essence and that also ensures, by
it, we have to, take it seriously, follow it to the end of the exploiting the mnemonic devices of song and poetryt that the
line, to assess its capacity to vivify our studies. What Cassirer "map" can be retained-in memory. By recalling the poem at
is contending is that .one must examine communicatic;m, even appropriate moments, space can be effectively configured.
scientific communication, even mathematical expression,. as A third mea:ns of mapping space· is danced ritual. The
the prim~ry phenomena of experience and not as something movements of the dance can parallel appropriate movements
"softer" all.d derivative from a "realer" existept na.ture. through space. By learning the dance the child acquires Cl.
Lest someone think this obscure, allow me to illustrate with representation of the space that on another occasion. can
an example, an example at once SO. artless and transparent guide behavior. -
that the meaning will be dear even if engaging complexities Space can be mapped, then, in different modeS;:-utilizing
are sacrificed. Let us suppose one had· to teach a child of lin~ on a page, sounds in air, movements in a dance .. All
six or seven how to get from home to. school. The ·child three are symbolic forms, though the symbols differ; ~ual,
has driven by the school, which is some six. or seven oral, and kinesthetic. Moreover, each of the syntbolic fonlls
blocks away, so he recognizes i~, but he has. no idea of the possesses two distinguishing characteristics: displacement
relation between. his house a;nd. school. The space between and productivity. Like ordinary language, each mode allows

26 27
 COMMUNICATION AS CULTl.IRE A CULTlJAAL APPROACH .TO COMMUNICATION

one to speak about or represent some thing when the thing and traces the path is a representation of the child, the
in question is not present. This capacity of displa<:ement, of walker. "Running" .the map isfa.ster than.walking the :r;oute
producing a complicated act when the "real" stimulus is riot and constitutesJhe "experimept" or 4 'test.".
physically present, is another often noted though not fully Thought is. the construction and utilizatioJl of such maps,
explored capacity. Second, :each ·. of these ·sytnbolic forms models, templates: football plays diagrammed, on a black-
is productive, for a person in command of the symbols is board~ equatioJilS• on paper, ritual dances charting the nature
capable of producing an infinite number of representations of ancestors, or streams.ofprose like this attempting,,out in
on the basis of a finite number of· symb'olk elements. As the bright-lit world mwhich we all live, .to present the. nature
with language, so with other symbolic forms: a finite set of communication.
of words or a finite set of phonemes can ·produce, through This particular miracle we perform daily and hourly-,-the
grammatical combination, an infinite'1;etofsentences. miracle of producing reality and then living wi$in and.under
We often argue that a map represents a simplification of the fact of our own production~ests upon a particular
or an abstraction from an environment. Not all the features· quality of symbols: their ability to be both. representations
of an environment are modeled, for the purpose ·of the "of" and "for" reality. 6
representation is to express not the possible complexity of A blueprint of a house in one mQde is a representation
things but their sirriplicity. Space is made manageable by the "for" reality: t;tnder its guidance and control a re11lity,. ~
reduction of information. By doing this, however, different house, is produ~d that expresses the relations <:ontain.ed
maps bring the same environment alive in different ways; in reduced and simplified form in the. blueprint. There is. a
they produce quite different realities. Therefore, to live second use of a blueprint, however. If someo,ne askt; for a.
within the purview of differ~t maps is to live within different description of a particular house, one can simply po~nt to
realities. Consequently;· maps hot only constitute the activity a blueprint and say, "That's the. house." Here the blueprint
known as mapmaking; they constitute nature itself. stands as a xepresentation or symbol ofreality: it, expresses or
·A further implication concerns the natute of thought. In represents in an alternative medium a synoptic formulation
our predominantly individualistic tradition, we are acrus- of the. nature of a particwar reality. While these are merely
tomed to think of thought as essentially private, an activity two. sides of the same coin, they point to the dual capacity
that occurs in the head-graphi<;ally represented by Rodin's of symbolic forms: as "symbols of" they present• ;reality; as.
"The Thfuker." I wish to suggest, in contradistinction, that "symbols for" they create the very reality they present.
thought is predominantly public and social. It occurs pri- In my earlier example the map:of the neighborhood in one
marily on blackboards, in dances, and in recited poems. mode i$ a symbol of, a representation that can be pointed
The capacity of private thought is a derived and secondary to when someone asks. about the relation between .home
talent, one that appears biographically later in the person and and schooL Ultimately, the map becomes .a rep.resentation
historically later i11 the species. Thought is public because it for reality when, under its guidanc.e, the child makes .his,
depends on a publicly available stock of symbols. It is public way .from home to school and,. by the particular blinders.
in a second and stronger sense. Thinking consists of building as well. <;ts the particular observatipJ;lS the. map induces,
maps of environments. Thought involves constructing a experiences space in the w"ay it is synoptically formulated
model of an environment and then tunning the model faster in the map.
than' the environment to see if nature can be coerced to It is no different with a religious ritual. ll}c .one mode
perform as the model does. In the earlier example, the map it .repr~sents the nature of human life, its condition ·and
of the neighborhood and the path from home to school meaning, and in another mode--its "for" mode--it induces
represent the environment; the finger one lays on the map the dispositions it pretends merely to portray.

28 29
 COMMUNICATION AS CULTURE A CULTURAL APPROACH TO COMMUNICATION

All human activity is such an exercise (can one resist in them? How do changel! in ·communication technology
the word "ritual"?) in squaring the drtle. We· first produce influence ,what we can· concretely ·create and a:eprehend?
the world by symbolic work and then take up residence in How do· groups in· society struggle over the definition of
the world we have produced. Alas, there ls magic in our what is real? These are some of the questions, rather t<>o
self deceptions. 1 simply put, that communication studies .must answer. ·
We not only produce realify but we must likewise maintain Finally, let me emphasize an ironic aspect .to the study
what we have produced, for there are always new genera- of communication, a way in which ·our subject rriattet
tions· coming along for whom our productions are incipiently doubles back on itself and presents us with a host of ethical
problematic and for whom reality must be regenerated and problems. Orie of the activities in which we characteris-
made authoritative. Reality must be repaired for it consist- tically engage, as in this essay, is communication about
ently breaks down; people get lost physio\lly and spiritually, commtinitation itself. However, communication is not some
experiments fail;· evidence counter to the representation is pure phenomenon we can discover; thete is no· such thing
produced, mental derangement sets in-all threats to our as communication to be revealed in nature through some
models of and for reality that lead to intense repair work. objective method free from the corruption of rulture: We
Finally, we must, often with fear and regret1 toss away our understand communication insofar as we are able to build
authoritative representations of teality arid begin to build models or representations of this process. But our models of
the world anew. We go to bed, to choose an example communication, like all models, have this dual aspect..:.-an
not quite at random, convinced behaviorists who view "of" aspect and a "for" aspect. In onemode communication
language, under the influence of Skinner, as a matter of models tell us what the process is; in their second mooe they
operantconditioning and wake up, for mysteriotls reasons, produce the behavior they have described. Communidltion
convinced rationalists, rebuildihg our mode of language, can be modeled in several empirically adequate ways,. •but
under· the influence of Chomsky, along the lines of deep these several models have different ethical 'implication~' for
structures, transformations, and surface appearances. These they produce different forms of social relations.
ate two different intellectual worlds 1.n which to live, and Let us face this dilemma directly. There is nothing in
we may find that the anomalies of one lead us to transform our genes that tells us how to cteate and execute those
it into another. s activities we summarize under the term "communication."
To study communication is to examine the actual social If we are to engage in this activity..:.....wtiting an essay, making
process wherein significant symbolic forms are created, a film, entertaining anaudience; imparting information and
apprehended, and used. When described this way some advite-:--we must discover models in our culture that tell
scholars would dismiss it as insufficiently empirical. My own us how this particular miracle is achieved. Such . mod-
view is the opposite, for I see it as an attempt to sweep away els are found in common sense, ·law, religious traditions,
our existing notions concerning communication that serve increasingly in scientific theories •themselves. Traditionally,
only to.devitalize our data. ·Our attempts to'construct, main- models of communication were found in religious thought.
tain, repair, and transform reality are publicly observable For example, in describing the roots of the transmission ·view
activities that occur in historical time. We create, express, of communication in nineteenth century American teligious
and convey our knowledge of and attif¥des toward reality thought I meant to imply the following: religious thought not
through the construction of a variety of symbpl systems: art, only described commumcation; it also presented a model for
science, journalism, religion, common sense, mythology. the appropriate uses of language, the permissible forms of
How do we do this? What are the differences between ·these human contact, the ends communication should serve, the
forms? What are the historical and comparative variations motives it should manifest. It taught what it meant to display.

30 31
 COMMUNICATION AS CVl,'.fURE . A CULTURAL' APPROACH TO COMMUNlCATION

Today models of communication ~e found less in religion make contact. We can changtt these models when they
than in science, but their implica~s are the ~me. For become iru;ldequate or we can modify and extend them ... Our ,
example, American s9cial scienc;:e generally has represented efforts tQ. do so, and to use the existing, models s.uccessful,ly, ·
take up a la~ge part of. our living energy. . . . Moreover,,
communication, within an overarc;:hing transmission view, many of our communication models .bec;pme,. in theillselves, .
in terms of either a power or aI'l <lnxiety m~el. These co~e­ social institutions. Certain attitudes t.o others, .cert.ain fQn,ns
spond roughly to what is found in information theory, leam- of address, certain tones and. styles. becQme embodied· fu
ing theory, and influence thepry {power),,cmd disson,ance., institutions which are then very power:ful in socialeffect....
balance theory, and .functionalism.or u~s and.gra,tifkations These arguable ass(lmptions are often embodied in solid,
analysis (anxiety). I cannot adequately explicate these views practical iflstitufions which 'then teach the models from
here, but tliey reduce the extraordinary• phenomenological which they start (1966: 19-20). · ·
diversity of communication into pn arena in which people
alternatively pursue power or flee anxiety. And one need This ·relation between science· and .society described by
only monitor. the be}l11vior of modem .institutions to see the Williams has not bee.n altogether missed by. the. public and
degree to,:~hi~h these models create, tJ:uough policy and accounts ·for,. some of the. widespread ,interesb m conununi~
program, the abstract motives and relations they portray. · cation. I am not speaking merely of the contemporary habit
Models of, communicafu>n are, then, J.lot merely rep;resen.,. of reducing all human problems to problems or failtires. in
tations of communication but represen~tions for commu- communication. Let 'us rerogrtize the habit for what i~ is:: an
nication; tempJ.ates t:tiat guide, unavailing or. not, .concrete attempt to coat reality with cliches, to provide a semantic
processes of human ~nteraction, mass an.d intei;per:sonal. crucifix toward off modem vampires. Butour appro~te
Ther~fore, to study communication involves examining the cynicism ·should· not· deflect us from discoveriri~l the kernel
construction, appre}lension, and use of models .of commu- of trnth in such phrase&. ; · « , '
nication themselves-rtheir constructjon .in common sense, If we follow Dewey, it will occur to us that problems
art, and science, th:eir historically specific creation .and of communkati<m are linked to problems of community; to.
use: .in encounters. between parent and child, adverti&ers problems surrounding the.· kinds of communities we create
am;:l consumer, welfare worker and supplicant, teacher and and in· which we live.~ For the ordinary person communi-
student. Behind and within these encounters lie mod.els. of cation consists merely of a set of daily activities: having
human contact and interaction. . · .· · conver5ations, conveymg instructions, ·being entertained,
· Our mode~s of communicatiQn, consequently, create .what sustaining debate !ind discussion, ·acquiring, information.
we disingenuously pretend they merely desQ'ibe~ As a ...i:esult The felt quality of, our lives is bound up with these aetivities
our science is, to use a term of Alvin Gouldner'~, a .r~flepve and how, they are carried out within communities.
one .. We not only describe behaviori,:We ~~~te:'a Pf:\rl:icµlar Our minds and .lives are shaped by our total experi-
comer of culture--culture t}lat determines, in part, the kind enre-or, better, by representations ·of experience and~ as
of communicative world we inhabit. . · , Williams has· argued,· a name for this experience •is com:o
Ra,ymond Williams, whose analysis I ~hall follow in con- munieation. If one tries to examine society as 1 .~ fonn .of
clusion, speaks to. the point: ' communication, one sees it as a• process wher~ .reality is
created, shared, modified, and preserved. When this process
Communication begins in the struggle to learn and to becomes opaque, when we lack models of and for re~lity
describe. To start this process in oor minds and tQ. pas's on that . make the world apprehensible, when we are unable
·its results -to othera,. we depend on certai,i ,communication to describe and share it; when because of a failµre ip. our
models, certain rules or conventions th.rough which we <:an models of communication we are unable to connect with

32 33
 COMMUNICATION AS CUL'FURE A CULTURAL .APPROACli TO COMMUNICATION

othel'S, we encounter problems of eommunication in .their firmly grasp the essence ()f this -"wonderful" process but
most potent form. a
to give us way in which to rebuild a model. of and for
The· widespread social interest· in communication derives communication of some restorative val~ in reshaping our
from' a derangement in our models of communication and common culture.
community. This derangement derives, in tum, from an
obsessive commitment to a transmission view of communi-
cation an.d the derivative 'representation of· cotrimunication NOTES
in complementary models of power.and anxiety, As a i'esult,
when we think about society, we are almost always coerced 1 For further elaboration on these matters, see chapter 4.
by our traditions into seeing ·it as a network of power, 1
2 For an interesting exposition of this view, see Lewis Mumford
administration, decision, and control-as a political order. (1967).
Alternatively, we have seen society essentially as relations 3 The only treatment of news that parallels the description offered
· of property, production, and trade-an economic order. here is William Stephenson's The Play Theory of Mass Comm.uni-
cation (1967). While Stephenson's treatment leaves much to be
But social life is more than power and tr<tde (and it is desired, particularly . because it .gets involved in some largely
more than·therapy as well). As.Williams has argued, it also irrelevant methodolo_gi'cal questions, it is nonetheless a genuine
includes the sharing of aesthetic experience, religious ideas, attempt to .offer an alternative to our views of communication.
personal values and sentiments, and· intellectual· notions-a 4 These contrasting views of communication also link, I believe,
ritual order .. with contrasting views of the nat\ire of language, thought, and
symbolism. The.transmission view of communic~tion leads to an
Our existing models of communication are less an G\nalysis emphasis on language as an instrument of prattical action and
than a contribution to the chaos of modem culture, and in discursive reasoning, of thought as essentially coneeptual and
impartant ways we are paying the penalty for the long abuse individual or reflective, and ofsymbolism as being preeminently
of fundamental· communicative processes in the service analytic. A ritual view of communication, on the other hand,
of politics, trade, and therapy. Three examples. Because sees language as an instrument of dramatic action, of thought
as essentially situational and sQcial, and symbolism as funda-
we have looked at each ·new advance in commun~ations mentally fiduciary.
technology as an opportunity, for politics and economics, 5 This is not to suggest that language constitutes the real world
we have devoted it1 almost exdufilvely, to matters··Of gov- as Ernst Cassirer often seems to argue. I wish to suggest that
ernment .and trade. We have .rarely seen these .advances the world. is apprehensible for humans only through language
as opportunities to expand people's powers to learn and or some other symbolic form.
6 This formulation, as with many other aspects of this essay, is
exchange ideas and experience. Because we have looked at heavily dependent on the work of Oifford Geertz (see Geertz,
education principally in· terms of its potential for ~onomics 1973).
and politics, we have turned it into a form of citizenship, 7 We, 0£1 course, not only' produce a world; we prpduce as
· professionalism and consumerism, and increasingly: thera- many as we can, and we live in easy or painful transit between
py. Because we have seen our cities· as the domain of them. Thi!! is the problem Alfred Schutz (1967) analyzed. as
the phenomenon of "multiple realities." I cannot treat this
politics and economics, they have become the residence problem here, but· I must add that soine such perspective on
of technology: and bureaucracy. Our streets are~ designed the multiple nature of produced reality is necessary in order to
to accommodate the automobile, our sidewalks to facilitate make any sense of the rather dismal area of communicative
trade, our land and houses to satisfy the economy_and the "effects."
real estate speculator. 8 The example and language are not fortuitous. Thomas Kuhn's
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) can be seen as
The object, then, of recasting our studies of commu- a description of how a scientific world is produced (paradigm
nication ·in terms of a ritual model is not only to more creation), maintained (paradigm articulation, training, through

34 35
 Media and Popular Culture
A Series of Critical Books

SERIES EDITOR
David Thorburn
Director of Film and Media Studies and Professor
Communication
of Literature,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

In recent years a new, interdisciplinary scholarship devoted to popular cul-

as Ctllture
ture and modern communications media has appeared. This emerging intel-
lectual field aims to move beyond inherited conceptions of "mass society" ESSAYS ON MEDIA AND SOCIETY
by recognizing the cultural experiences. The new scholarship on µi.edia and
popular culture conceives communication as a complex, ritualized experi-
ence in which "meaning" or significance is constituted by an intricate,
contested collaboration among institutional, ideological, and cultural forces.

Intended for students and scholars as well as the serious general reader,
Media and Popular Culture will publish original interpretive studies devoted
to various forms of contemporary culture, with emphasis on media texts, JAMES W. CAREY
audiences, and institutions. Aiming to create a fruitful dialogue between
recent strains of feminist, semiotic, and marxist cultural study and older
forms of humanistic and social-scientific scholarship, the series will be open
to many methods and theories and committed to a discourse that is intellec-
tually rigorous yet accessible and lucid.

Communication as Culture
Essays on Media and Society
JAMES W. CAREY
Myths of Oz
Readings in Popular Australian Culture
JOHN FISKE, BOB HODGE, and GRAEME TURNER
Teenagers and Teenpics
The Juvenilization of American Movies in the 1950's ·~
THOMAS DOHERTY r
Forthcoming
Comic Visions
Television Comedy and American Culture
DAVID MARC
l
Shakespearean Films
PETER DONALDSON
Boston
The Rhetoric of Revelation
RICHARD GOLDSTEIN UNWINHYMAN
Additional titles in preparation London Sydney Wellington
 Series £,ditor' s Introduction

.In their unrevised form as articles and lectures, the essays gathered
in this book helped to establish the ground for cultural approaches
to the, study of communications and modem technology. On
reading in fhe American Scholar the first version of "The Mythos of
the Electronic Revolution" (chapter 5), Marshall McLuhan wrote
Carey a letter hailing him as a "fearless and character," who was
taking "his academic life in his hands."
McLuhan had a keen awareness of the embedded institutional
power of the "mass communications" establishment in the decades
following World WarU and an equally strong sense of its intellectual
inadequacy, its narrow empirical and behaviorist notions of people
and cu}tural institutions. He recognized how bold and in its own
way how radical is Carey's ambition-it was McLuhan's as well,
of course-to put in question our inherited mythologies of "com-
munication" and "mass media" and the "electronic revolution."
Yet in the theoretically self-conscious and ideologically attuned
discourse that dominates cultural interpretation of all sorts as we
begin this last decade of the 'twentieth century, Carey's fearlessness
might be said to reside in nearly opposite virtues. His voice is
distinctive and important in our current scholarly climate, that
is, in part for ',its very refusal to yield entirely to a vocabulary
of power, for its m~istance to the privileging of "ideological" as
against "mythic" or "ritual" or "anthropological" elements in the

] description and interpretation of cultural formations.

Mediating and ambivalent, the essays collected here insist on the
ideological/political dimensions of media theory and practice, bl.it
they do so in a moderating, pluralist, and citizenly spirit. Culture
is not a one-way process, so runs Carey's continuing subtext. A
domination model of social experience must oversimplify cultural
transactions, which always contain elements of collaboration,
of dialogue, of ritualized sharing or,' interaction. A "progress 11

;'l' model is similarly reductive, masking a rationale for established

! power and established ways of thinking and also underestimating
~\ the individual and communal, the interactive dimensions of cul-
ture.
This book itself embodies the virtues of dialogue and intellectual
collaboration, of course. The pluralist American philosophers John
Dewey and William James are shaping spirits here; and I imagine

ix
 COMMUNICATION AS CULTURE

that Carey's nonspecialist use of these ~lii~~rs and his gener-

ous, lucid accounts of such contemporaries as Clifford Geertz,
Acknowledgments
Raymond Williams, and Harold Innis will be helpful for many
readers. Still more, I hope that Carey's flexible spirit, his hostility
to terminologies, his pluralist and democratist notions of culture
will reach a wide new audience of teachers and scholars and
reader-citizens. In the course of composing the· essays collected herein, I acquired
a large and cosmopolitan set. of obligations, and now is the time to
-David Thorburn discharge a few of them. . . . .
The National Endowment for· the Humanities provided· a· year's
respite from administrative duties to work on three Qf the essays.
Likewise, the lnstit:Ute of Advanced Study at the University of
Illinois. underwrote some leisure .for time at· the typewriter and
in the library. The Gannett Center for Media Studies at Columbia
University granted me five months as an Inaugural .fellow for
research, writing, and revision .. Finally, I passed a happy season· at
the UniVersity of Georgia in its School of Journalism, undistracted,
as a visiting professor celebrating the bicentennial of our first public
university. To those institutions-and to Everette Dennis, Daniel
Alpert, and Thomas Russen___:.ram greatly indebted.
My largest obligation is to John J. Quirk of Chicago, with whon't
I wrote two of the essays and from whom I learned much. DaVid
Thorbum's energy and interest brought the collection together.
Many others helped along the way, often in forms they would
scarcely recognize. Here are a few With instant apologies tll tiho&e
I have omitted: Gail Crotts, Norman Sims, D<>uglas Birkhead;
Roxanne Zimmer, Jacqueline Cartier; John Pauly; Roberta Astroff,
Keya Ganguly, and Robert Fortner.
I have been blessed with membership on the faculty· of two fine
institutions: briefly at the University of Iowa and over a considerable
period at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Much help
and companionship came from people in both places: Lary Belman,
John Erickson, Hanno Hardt, Charlotte Jones, Howard Maclay, Kim
Rotzoll, Chuck Whitney, Ellen Wartella, Wick Rowland, Howard
Ziff, Rita Simon, Larry Grossberg, and Cliff Christians. Barbara
Welch has been a unique friend sharing her talents and affections
generously. Albert Kreiling's thought traces, even when it makes s
him unhappy, many of the sentences. Bill Alfeld has taught me
more than anyone else over thirty happy years.· Ted Peterson has
tried valiantly to untangle the prose along with the thought. Jay
Jensen has always been a particular inspiration. Joli Jensen edited
an early version and then shared her unparalleled gift for friendship.
Eleanor Blum has been a consummate librarian to a generation of

x xi