The End of Conversation: The Impact of Mass Media on Modern Society

by Franco Ferrarotti, Dan A. Chekki (Editor)

Overview

Franco Ferrarotti here offers a provocative look at the future of a world dominated by mass media—particularly television. He argues eloquently that the art of story-telling, the traditions of oral history, the simple pleasures of individual conversation are being lost, precisely because they embody qualities antithetical to the technological imperatives of mass society—qualities such as time to develop a thought, a thirst for details, patience, and a delight in the unexpected. He asserts that the mental habits prevailing in an age that places undue value on instantaneous images are incompatible with extended face-to-face dialogue.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780313260872
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	05/06/1988
Series:	Controversies in Science , #71
Pages:	199
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Franco Ferrarotti is professor of sociology and chariman of the PhD program in social science at the University of Rome, Italy.

Table of Contents

Preface
Part I: The Interrupted Conversation
Between Two Voids
The Paradox of Oral History
Talking Among Human Beings
Reality as Spectacle
The Autonomy of the Medium
The Contribution of Harold Adams Innis
Knowledge and Information
The Proletarinization of the Soul
The Human Voice in Athens
Part II: The Crisis of the Event: The Decline and Transfiguration of Charisma
The "White Tribe" in a Minority Position
End of History or Crisis of Elite Historicism?
The Limitations of European Culture in a Culturally Pluralistic World
Charisma as the Extraordinary Personalized Response to the "Challenge of the Exception"
Sects as Dispensers of Certainty in an Uncertain World
The "Children of Moon," or the Businessman as Prophet
From Absolute Obedience to Salvation
The TV Pope
The Mass Media and the Annulment of Determinants of Time and Place
Part III: New Historicism and Life Histories
The Crisis of Historicism
History and Sociology
Life-Histories and Historical Horizon
Preliminary Critical Remarks
Inference and Reproducibility
The Impossible Synthesis
The Personal Equation
The Interaction
Context and Temporality
Annotated Bibliography
Index