The Mass Media and Urban Development: An Historical Overview.

,ABSTRACT The mass media in the United States have played a major role in the emergence of a mass society resulting from the interaction of urbanization, industri'alization, and modernization and have thus become an integral part' of the total social fabric. Sodiety's culture and social structure shape its system of mass communication so that the development, from the 1830s to the present, of urbanization has brought about an allied development in mass communications. First, the need for urban communication forms was` met' by the urban press. Then, as urban life became increasingly complex, the telegraph, telephone, and motion picture'were developed, =followed in'the twentieth century by radio and television.-As essentially products of an urban society, the con -tents of the mass media are concerned mainly with urban life and reflect urban values. (JM)