2. Other theories

   1. Mass society theory

Since the beginning of the XX century the study of mass media in modern society has been allocated in a separate research field. Interest in this subject has been increasing both in connection with the emergence of new channels of mass communication (radio and cinema), and in connection with the course of military operations during World War I value of propaganda (Vartanova, 2002).

The first theory, which has become a scientific basis for political communication research, was “mass society theory”. Various aspects of “mass society theory” were developed by such famous authors as Hannah Arendt (1951), David Émile Durkheim (1955), Elias Canetti (1962), Gustave Le Bon (1896), Karl Mannheim (1943), Serge Moscovici (1981), José Ortega y Gasset (1930), David Riesman (1965), Herbert Spencer (1896), Sigmund Freud (1951) and many other authors, who believed that in “industrial society” the basic social unit will be “mass”. From the standpoint of “mass society theory” political communication theorists have been investigated by such famous authors as Herbert Blumer (1953), Harold Dwight Lasswell (1953), Walter Lippmann (1922), James Clapper (1960), etc.

According to the classical definition of H. Bloomer, the masses are "elementary spontaneously arising teams, which are largely reminded the crowd, but in many ways radically different from them" (Blumer, 1953; p. 35) He identified the following distinguishing characteristics of the mass:

1. It is composed of representatives of various social, cultural, racial, professional, etc. population groups.

2. The masses are the anonymous group, and rather composed of anonymous individuals.

3. Interaction and exchange of experiences among members of mass is minimal, since they are physically divided from each other.

4. The masses have no organizational structure, and in contrast to the crowds, they cannot act coherently. (Blumer, 1953; p. 43)

The basic instrument, uniting people in a mass, according to G. Bloomer, is the mass media (Blumer, 1953; p. 43). That is why as a good example of mass, G. Bloomer pointed out huge mass of people who simultaneously watch the news on TV, searching for the next serial killer. Viewers, listeners of radio stations or newspaper readers, having a completely different social characteristics (age, gender, income, education, religion, etc.), then become a mass (Blumer, 1953; p. 51).

Since the mass has no social organization, leadership systems, traditions, statuses and roles, it cannot be considered as a society. But it is not a crowd, because unlike crowd, mass is not disposed to act in accordance with the instructions of the leader. Reaction of mass is less aggressive, but just as elementary as the reaction of the crowd. That is why media products and everything associated with mass culture, is made in the most simple and elementary form. (Blumer, 1953; p. 55)

One of the first researchers who analyzed the following key concepts of political communication as propaganda, public opinion and stereotypes was Walter Lippmann, who in 1922 published a book "Public opinion", which became a classic on the field (Lippmann, 1922). According to W. Lipman, public opinion is the amount of stereotypes ordered by the mass opinion about the event, quite far from the truth (Lippmann, 1922; p. 5 - 12). Stereotypes play a crucial role not only in the perception of political information, but also in political coverage made by journalists (Lippmann, 1922; p. 7 - 9). Walter Lippmann made his conclusions on the basis of a content analysis of print media, which became a model for subsequent generations of scholars. Modern interpretation of the ideas of Walter Lippmann is the theory of James Klapper, according to which the process of mass communication in society is developing in line with the model of homeostasis, where the perception of information from mass media is in balance with the dominant society stereotypes (Klapper, 1960).