On the dialogic aspects of mass communication

Abstract

A major problem for “cultural studies” approaches to mass communication lies in defining relations between mediated texts and social practice. Neither formalist analysis nor “effects studies” adequately account for the link. Grand theories formulated by Marx, Freud, and others also fail here. Hegemony theory offers more adequate explanations, but exhibits weaknesses. In theories of language and text formulated by V. N. Volosinov and M. M. Bakhtin, we find some partial solutions. They focus on communication processes, the struggle for meaning in mediated texts. Applied to mass communication these notions offer new directions for textual analysis and audience research, and, more importantly, for studying relations between those areas of concern.