CRITICAL THEORY AND ELECTRONIC MEDIA.

Four paradigms lead social research on mass media and information technologies. Developmentalism, a view that links urbanization, media growth and social progress has shaped the study of international communications. Pluralism, a perspective that views state-media relations as the product of political bargaining among interest groups that represent all segments of society has led research on the politics of electronic communications. The influence of information technologies on the shape of the economy, on profits, productivity and industrial relations is guided by post-industrialism. It focuses on how technologies increase the power of information professionals and generally liberate workers from the drudgery of traditional industrial labor. Finally, a mass society perspective guides most research on the media and the private sphere of leisure. The diffusion of mass culture provides a payoff for whatever subjugation the individual must endure in the workplace. These paradigms have proven useful in directing attention to the growing impact of electronic media on economic, political and social life. Critical challenges have been slow to develop primarily because the focus of debate in critical theory has been on the cultural realm.