Mass communications and state structures

Many analyses of media seek a global variable that can be used to explain human consciousness and social behavior. In contrast, this article provides an analysis of media as used and contextualized by human beings to either maintain various state structures or to provide alternatives to extant state structures. Specifically, this article demonstrates that while autocratic state authorities use and contextualize print and electronic media to strengthen the state, the use and contextualization of the print medium in the marketplace erodes autocratic authority. Conversely, the use and contextualization of electronic media by either autocratic or market centered representatives promotes the development of charismatic authority; and in turn, erodes representative-constituent relationships—or the foundations of a representative democracy. These themes will be documented by analyzing the evolution of print in Western societies; the use of radio in the 1930s by Germany, Great Britain, and the United States; and the rise of television broadcasting.Hitler's dictatorship employed to perfection technology to dominate its own people. By means of such instruments as the radio and public-address systems, eighty million persons could be made subject to the will of one individual.