Encyclopedia of SociologyVol._3

women’s movements that triggered considerable mass media research with implications for local media practices, programming decisions and U.S. policy, this UNESCO report was to become pivotal in pitching these issues to the rest of the world for research and analysis.

The United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing in 1995, included women and media among the thirteen major substantive areas for consideration. There were reports on country-specific surveys of media practices, characteristics and attitudes of those holding jobs in the media, and program content (All-China Journalists Association and Institute of Journalism, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences 1996) and studies that involved the coordination of data collection in many countries. For example, the Global Media Monitoring Project gathered data from news media—radio, television and newspa- pers—in seventy-one countries for representation and portrayal of women at one point in time: January 18, 1995. Based on the data, an overall report and separate regional reports were produced. The study provides a large database with policy implications for UNESCO and for media systems in many countries. A benchmark for measuring future change, the Media Monitoring Project’s study remains the most extensive survey of portrayals of women in the world’s news media that has been undertaken to date (Media Watch 1995).

On balance, however, it remains unclear from available research whether women and men working in the mass media take different approaches on issues or events, even if women and men have a different range of interests they select for media attention. Though there has been an increase in the number of women working in the media in the past few years, surveys also show that the world of media remains strongly male (Maherzi 1997).

Most recently, research questions emerging in international communications are centering on the concept of globalization of mass media producers and their products. The concentration and control of media industries into fewer and fewer transnational corporations has long been a concern in research that points to the negative effects of increasing global ‘‘homogenization.’’ It is not without some irony that, on the one hand, the results of mass media investigations have brought

about international pressure for diversifying media products with voices of women and minorities of all kinds, while on the other hand, ownership of the world’s media is concentrated in the hands of a few corporate giants.

NEW MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES

One of these corporate giants in the media world is Time Warner. Years ago, Warner Brothers produced films and Time produced a news magazine. Together, they are now also involved with other aspects of the media environment, including newspapers, magazines, television, cable television, radio, video games, telephones, and computers in the United States and around the world. Understanding why such a corporate giant was created is key to understanding the impacts of new media technologies: ‘‘Convergence’’ of technical infrastructures is leading to consolidation of media products and services.

The Internet, or the Information Superhighway, with the World Wide Web (www), is the most recent development, which has the potential to offer any or all of the aforementioned media products and services through on-line information networks. Current Internet services are transmitted via computer-telephone connections, but explorations of other methods of transmissions are under way, such as cable television and direct satellite links. Obviously, the corporate giants wish to be positioned to take their share of any new media offerings and to provide new delivery systems. What technology will deliver news and entertainment, as well as other information and services, in the future remains an open question.

Regardless of how the infrastructure question is decided, will the definition of ‘‘news’’ remain the same? Because of the vast storage capacity of computers, the role of editors and gatekeepers may change. With the ability of computers to allow more personalized reception of news offerings, will the ‘‘newspaper’’ still be considered a mass medium?

Internet-related services and e-mail already are providing new possibilities for on-line public opinion polls. But so far, such surveys are similar to volunteer call-in or write-in polls and are limited to Internet users. While the number of new Internet users grows daily, by the year 2000 the numbers of

U.S. adults on-line is expected to reach only 60 million (Pew Research Center 1996). Increasingly, on-line users are ‘‘decidedly mainstream,’’ according to a nationwide telephone survey, and for now, television is losing in their allocations of time (Pew Research Center 1998).

At the atomistic level, researchers have conducted ethnographic and clinical observation on how people relate to computers and how they may be reconstructing their basic sense of identity (Turkle 1995).

How will the traditional mass communication conceptualizations of diffusion of innovations, agen- da-setting and agenda-building, cultivation, and mainstreaming help us to understand the new media environment?

Is our new world more global or more local (Sreberny-Mohammadi et al. 1997)? Are we moving into Marshall McLuhan’s long-promised ‘‘global village‘‘? Or is it a global megalopolis? Are we moving from UNESCO’s ‘‘many voices, one world’’ to many worlds, one voice?

These are some of the many questions that will occupy media researchers in the near future.

Gerbner, George, Larry Gross, Michael Morgan, and Nancy Signorielli 1986 ‘‘Living with Television: The Dynamics of the Cultivation Process.’’ In J. Bryant and D. Zillmann, eds., Perspectives on Media Effects. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Howkins, John 1982 Mass Communication in China. New

York: Longman.

Innis, Harold A. 1951 The Bias of Communication. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

International Commission for the Study of Communication Problems 1980 Many Voices, One World: Communication and Society, Today and Tomorrow. New York: Unipub.

Iyengar, Shanto, and Donald R. Kinder 1987 News That Matters: Television and Public Opinion. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Kirat, Mohamed, and David Weaver 1985 ‘‘Foreign News Coverage in Three Wire Services: A Study of AP, UPI and the Nonaligned News Agencies Pool,’’ Gazette 35:31–47.

Klapper, Joseph T. 1960 The Effects of Mass Communication. New York: Free Press.

Lang, Gladys Engel, and Kurt Lang 1984 Politics and Television Re-Viewed. Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage.

———, and ——— 1983 Battle for Public Opinion: The President, the Media, and the Polls During Watergate. New York: Columbia University Press.

REFERENCES

All-China Journalists Association, and Institute of Journalism, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences 1996 ‘‘Survey on the Current Status and Development of Chinese Women Journalists.’’ Beijing.

Alot, Magaga 1982 People and Communication in Kenya. Nairobi: Kenya Literature Bureau.

Bagdikian, Ben H. (1983) 1997 The Media Monopoly, 5th ed. Boston: Beacon Press.

Beniger, James R. 1986 The Control Revolution: Technological and Economic Origins of the Information Society. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Bennett, W. Lance 1988 News: The Politics of Illusion. New York: Longman.

Chu, Godwin C. 1977 Radical Change through Communication in Mao’s China. Honolulu: East-West Center/ University Press of Hawaii.

Dennis, Everette E., ed. 1991 The Media at War: The Press and the Persian Gulf Crisis. New York: Gannett Foundation Media Center.

Galtung, Johan, and Mari Holmboe Ruge 1965 ‘‘The Structure of Foreign News,’’ Journal of Peace Research 2:64–91.

Lasswell, Harold D. 1947 ‘‘The Structure and Function of Communication in Society.’’ In L. Bryson, ed., The Communication of Ideas. New York: Harper.

Lerner, Daniel, and Wilbur Schramm 1967 Communication and Change in the Developing Countries. Honolulu: East-West Center Press.

Lull, James 1991 China Turned On: Television, Reform and Resistance. New York: Routledge.

McCombs, Malcom E., and Donald L. Shaw 1972 ‘‘The Agenda-Setting Function of Mass Media.’’ Public Opinion Quarterly 36:176–187.

——— 1976 ‘‘Structuring the ‘Unseen Environment.’’’

Journal of Communication (Spring):18–22.

Maherzi, Lotfi 1997 World Communication Report: The Media and the Challenge of New Technologies. Paris: UNESCO.

Media Development 1991 ‘‘Reporting the Gulf War,’’ Special Issue, October. London: World Association for Christian Communication.

Media Watch 1995 Global Media Monitoring Project: Women’s Participation in the News. Toronto and Ontario: National Watch on Images of Women in the Media (Media Watch) Inc.

Mickiewicz, Ellen 1988 Split Signals: Television and Politics in the Soviet Union. New York: Oxford University Press.

Milavsky, J. Ronald, Horst Stipp, Ronald C. Kessler, and William S. Rubens 1982 Television and Aggression: A Panel Study. New York: Academic.

Milgram, Stanley 1973 Television and Anti-Social Behavior: A Field Experiment. New York: Academic.

Murray, John P., and Eli A. Rubinstein 1972 Television and Social Behavior: Reports and Papers, 5 vols. Washington, D.C.: National Institute for Mental Health.

Nacos, Brigitte L. 1994 Terrorism and the Media: From the Iran Hostage Crisis to the World Trade Center Bombing. New York: Columbia University Press.

Pew Research Center for the People and the Press 1996 ‘‘One in Ten Voters Online for Campaign.’’ September. http://www.people-press.org.

——— 1998 ‘‘Online Newcomers More Middle-Brow, Less Work-Oriented: The Internet News Audience Goes Ordinary.’’ October-December. http://www.peo- ple-press.org.

Rogers, Everett M. (1962) 1995 Diffusion of Innovations, 4th ed. New York: Free Press.

———, and James W. Dearing 1988 ‘‘Agenda-Setting Research: Where Has It Been, Where Is It Going?’’ In J. Anderson, ed., Communication Yearbook 11. Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage.

Rowland, Willard D., Jr. 1997 ‘‘Television Violence Redux: The Continuing Mythology of Effects.’’ In M. Baker and J. Petley, eds., Ill Effects: The Media/Violence Debate. New York: Routledge.

Schramm, Wilbur 1964 Mass Media and National Development. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.

——— 1973 Men, Women, Messages and Media. New York: Harper and Row.

———, Jack Lyle, and Edwin B. Parker 1961 Television in the Lives of Our Children. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.

Siebert, Fred, Theodore Peterson, and Wilbur Schramm 1956 Four Theories of the Press. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

Signorielli, Nancy, and Michael Morgan, eds. 1990 Cultivation Analysis: New Directions in Media Effects Research. Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage.

Sreberny-Mohammadi, Annabelle 1984 ‘‘The ‘World of the News.’’’ Journal of Communication (Winter):121–134.

———, Dwayne Winseck, Jim McKenna, and Oliver Boyd-Barrett, eds. 1997 Media in Global Context: A Reader. New York: Arnold/Hodder Headline Group.

Turkle, Sherry 1995 Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet. New York: Simon and Schuster.

Weaver, David H., and G. Cleveland Wilhoit 1996 The American Journalist in the 1990s: U.S. News People at the End of an Era. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

———, with Wei Wu 1998 The Global Journalist: News People Around the World. Cresskill, N.J.: Hampton Press.

Williams, Tannis, ed. 1986 The Impact of Television. New York: Academic Press.

JANICE M. ENGSBERG

KURT LANG

GLADYS ENGEL LANG

MASS SOCIETY

The mass society theory, in all its diverse formulations, is based on a sweeping general claim about ‘‘the modern world,’’ one announcing a ‘‘breakdown of community.’’ The leading nineteenthcentury proponents of this position were Louis de Bonald, Joseph de Maistre, and, from a different perspective, Gustave Le Bon. These formulations argue the collapse of the stable, cohesive, and supportive communities found in the days of yore. In modern times, as a consequence, one finds rootlessness, fragmentation, breakdown, individuation, isolation, powerlessness, and widespread anxiety (Giner 1976; Halebsky 1976).

The original formulations of this position, those of the nineteenth century, were put forth by conservatives, by persons identified with or defending the old regime. These were critiques of the liberal theory or, more precisely, of liberal practice. The basic aim of the liberals was to free individuals from the restraints of traditional institutions. That aim was to be accomplished by the dismantling of the ‘‘irrational’’ arrangements of the old regime. Liberals, understandably, were enthusiastic about the achievement: Free men could do things, achieve things, create things that were impossible under the old arrangement. The collective benefits, they argued, were (or would be) enormous. The conservative critics agreed about some aspects of the history. They agreed about the general process of individuation. They, however, called it fragmentation or a decline of community. More important, they provided very different assessments of the consequences. At its simplest, the

liberals argued an immense range of benefits coming with the transformation, a conclusion signaled, for example, in Adam Smith’s title, The Wealth of Nations. The mass society theorists agreed with the basic diagnosis but drew strikingly opposite conclusions pointing to a wide, and alarming, range of personal and social costs.

The modern world begins, supposedly, with an enormous uprooting of populations. Ever greater numbers are forced from the small and stable communities into the large cities. In place of the strong, intimate, personal supports found in the small community, the large cities were characterized by fleeting, impersonal contacts. The family was now smaller. The isolated nuclear family— father, mother, and dependent children—was now the rule, replacing the extended family of farm and village. The urban neighborhoods were and are less personal. The frequent moves required in urban locales make deep, long-lasting friendships difficult if not impossible. As opposed to the support and solidarity of the village, instrumental and competitive relationships are typical in the large cities and this too makes sustained social ties problematic. In the mass society people are ‘‘atomized.’’ The human condition is one of isolation and loneliness. The claims put forth in this tradition are typically unidirectional—the prediction is ‘‘more and more.’’ There is ever more uprooting, more mobility, more societal breakdown, more isolation, and more anxiety.

The nineteenth-century versions of this theory focused on the insidious role of demagogues. In those accounts, traditional rulers, monarchs, aristocracy, and the upper classes did their best to govern fundamentally unstable societies. But from time to time, demagogues arose out of ‘‘the masses,’’ men who played on the fears and anxieties of an uneducated, poorly informed, and gullible populace. The plans or programs offered by the demagogues were said to involve ‘‘easy solutions.’’ But those, basically, were unrealistic or manipulative usages, ones providing no solutions at all. The demagogues brought revolution, which was followed by disorder, destruction, and death. The traditional patterns of rule were disrupted; the experienced and well-meaning leaders were displaced, either killed or driven into exile. The efforts of the demagogues made an already-des- perate situation worse.

Conservative commentators pointed to the French Revolution as the archetypical case with Robespierre and his associates as the irresponsible demagogues. Mass society theorists also pointed to the experience of ancient Greece and Rome. There too the demagogues had done their worst, overthrowing the Athenian democracy and bringing an end to the Roman republic. The republic was succeeded by a series of emperors and praetorians, men who, with rare exceptions, showed various combinations of incompetence, irresponsibility, and viciousness.

The lesson of the mass society theory, in brief, was that if the masses overthrew the traditional leaders, things would be much worse. The ‘‘successes’’ of liberalism, the destruction of traditional social structures, the elimination of stable communities, and the resulting individualism (also called ‘‘egoism’’) could only worsen an already precarious situation. The theory, accordingly, counseled acceptance or acquiescence.

It is easy to see such claims as ideological, as pretense, as justifications for old-regime privilege. Such claims were (and are) given short shrift in the opposite liberal dramaturgy and, still later, in the dramaturgy of the left. In those opposite accounts, the old regime is portrayed as powerful. The rulers, after all, had vast wealth and influence; they controlled the police and the ultimate force, the army.

In private accounts, however, the leaders of the old regime reported a sense of powerlessness. Their ‘‘hold’’ on power, they felt, was tenuous; they stood on the edge of the abyss. Chateaubriand, the French ambassador, congratulated Lord Liverpool on the stability of British institutions. Liverpool pointed to the metropolis outside his windows and replied: ‘‘What can be stable with these enormous cities? One insurrection in London and all is lost.’’ The French Revolution itself proved the flimsiness of ‘‘established’’ rule. In 1830, the restored monarchy in France collapsed after only a week of fighting in the capital. In 1848, Louis Philippe’s regime fell after only two days of struggle. A month later, the Prussian king and queen, effectively prisoners of the revolution, were forced to do obeisance to the fallen insurgents. The queen’s comment—‘‘Only the guillotine is missing.’’ More than a century later, the historian J. R. Jones

declared that ‘‘during long periods of this time, many conservatives felt that they were irretrievably on the defensive, faced not with just electoral defeat but also doomed to become a permanent and shrinking minority, exercising a dwindling influence on the mind and life of the nation.’’

Early in the twentieth century, sociologists in Europe and North America developed an extensive literature that also argued a loss-of-community thesis. Among the Europeans, we have Ferdinand Tönnies, Georg Simmel, and, with a difference, Emile Durkheim. Simmel’s essay, ‘‘The Metropolis and Mental Life,’’ had considerable influence in North America, especially in the development of sociology at the University of Chicago. The Chicago ‘‘school’’ was founded by Robert Ezra Park who had studied under Simmel. Park’s essay, ‘‘The City: Suggestions for Investigation of Human Behavior in the Urban Environment,’’ provided the agenda for generations of sociologists. Another central work in the Chicago tradition was Louis Wirth’s 1938 article, ‘‘Urbanism as a Way of Life.’’ The city, Wirth wrote, is ‘‘characterized by secondary rather than primary contacts. The contacts of the city may indeed be face to face, but they are nevertheless impersonal, superficial, transitory, and segmental . . . . Whereas the individual gains, on the one hand, a certain degree of emancipation or freedom from the personal and emotional controls of intimate groups, he loses, on the other hand, the spontaneous self-expression, the morale, and the sense of participation that comes with living in an integrated society. This constitutes essentially the state of anomie, or the social void, to which Durkheim alludes’’ (p. 153).

Writing almost a half-century after Wirth, sociologist Barrett A. Lee and his coworkers—in an important challenge to those claims—commented on this tradition as follows: ‘‘Few themes in the literature of the social sciences have commanded more sustained attention than that of the decline of community . . . . In its basic version, the thesis exhibits a decidedly antiurban bias, stressing the invidious contrast between the integrated smalltown resident and the disaffiliated city dweller’’ (pp. 1161–1162). Those sociologists do not appear to have had any clear political direction. Their work was value-neutral. It was pointing to what they took as a basic fact about modern societies without proposing any specific remedies.

Later in the twentieth century, a new version of the mass society theory made its appearance. This may be termed the left variant. All three versions of the theory, right, neutral, and left, agree on ‘‘the basics,’’ on the underlying root causes of the modern condition, all agreeing on the ‘‘decline of community.’’ But the right and left differ sharply in their portraits of the rulers, of the elites, the upper classes, or the bourgeoisie. In the rightist version, the rulers face a serious threat from below, from the demagogues and their mass followings. Their control is said to be very tenuous. In the left version, the rulers are portrayed as skillful controllers of the society. The key to their successful domination is to be found in their adept use of the mass media.

The bourgeoisie, the ruling class, or its executive agency, the ‘‘power elite,’’ is said to control the mass media of communication, the press, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and television, using them for their purposes. News and commentary, much of it, is said to be self-serving. It is essentially ideological, material designed to justify and defend ‘‘the status quo.’’ The entertainment provided is diversionary in character, intended to distract people from their real problems. Advertising in the media serves the same purposes—distrac- tion, creation of artificial needs, and provision of false solutions. The bourgeoisie, it is said, owns and controls ‘‘the media.’’ With their vast resources, they are able to hire specialists of all kinds, market researchers, psychologists, and so forth, to aid in this manipulative effort. The near-helpless audience (as ever, atomized, powerless, and anxious) is psychologically disposed to accept the ‘‘nostrums’’ provided.

Elements of this position appeared in the writings of the Italian Marxist, Antonio Gramsci, with his concept of ideological hegemony. Some writers in the ‘‘Frankfurt school,’’ most notably Herbert Marcuse, also argued this position. It appeared also in the work of C. Wright Mills, in his influential book, The Power Elite. Many others have offered variants of this position.

The left mass society theory provided a third ‘‘revision’’ of the Marxist framework, that is, after those of Bernstein and Lenin. It is the third major attempt to explain the absence of the proletarian revolution. Marx and Engels assigned no great importance to the mass media. They occasionally

referred to items in the ‘‘bourgeois’’ press, adding sardonic comments about its ‘‘paid lackeys.’’ But newspaper reports were treated as of little importance. They could not stop or reverse the ‘‘wheel of history.’’ But in this third revision, ‘‘the bourgeoisie’’ had found the means to halt the ‘‘inevitable’’ course. The controllers of the media were able to penetrate the minds of ‘‘the masses’’ and could determine the content of their outlooks. The masses were said to be drugged or, to use a favored term, they were ‘‘narcotized.’’

In the 1950s, in the Eisenhower era, the mass media were unambiguously affirmative about ‘‘society’’ and its major institutions. Families were portrayed as wholesome and happy; the nation’s leaders, at all levels, were honorable and upstanding. It was this ‘‘affirmative’’ content that gave rise to the argument of the media as manipulative, as distracting. In the late 1960s, media content changed dramatically. Programs now adopted elements of the mass society portrait, dwelling on themes of social dissolution. Families, neighborhoods, and cities were now ‘‘falling apart.’’ Many exposés, in books, magazines, motion pictures, and television, in the news and in ‘‘investigative reports,’’ told tales of cunning manipulation. Unlike the right and left versions of the mass society theory, these critics do not appear to have any clear political program. They appear, rather, to be driven by an interest in ‘‘exposure.’’ No evident plan, directive, or call for action seems to be involved. Studies indicate that most of the participants are modern-day liberals, not socialists or Marxists.

The mass society theory has had a peculiar episodic history, a coming-and-going in popularity. It had a wave of popularity in the 1940s when Karl Mannheim, Emil Lederer, Hannah Arendt, and Sigmund Neumann, all German exile-schol- ars, attempted to explain the major events of the age. A sociologist, William Kornhauser presented an empirically based synthesis in 1959, but this effort, on balance, had little impact. In the 1960s, the wave of ‘‘left’’ mass society theorizing appeared, beginning with the influential work of Herbert Marcuse. In 1970, Charles Reich’s The Greening of America appeared, a book destined to have, for several years, an enormous influence. It provided a depiction of the nation that was entirely within the mass society framework: ‘‘America is

one vast, terrifying anti-community. The great organizations to which most people give their working day, and the apartments and suburbs to which they return at night are equally places of loneliness and isolation. Modern living has obliterated place, locality, and neighborhood’’ (p. 7).

Few research-oriented social scientists have given the mass society theory much credence in the last couple of decades, this for a very good reason: virtually all the major claims of the theory have been controverted by an overwhelming body of evidence (Campbell et al. 1976; Campbell 1981; Fischer 1981; Fischer 1984; Hamilton and Wright 1986).

The mass society portrait is mistaken on all key points. Most migration is collective; it is serial, chain migration, in which people move with or follow other people, family and friends, from their home communities. Most migration involves shortdistance moves; most migrants are never very far from their ‘‘roots.’’ Cities do grow through the addition of migrants; but they also grow through annexation, a process that does not disturb established social ties. The typical mass society account, moreover, is truncated, providing an incomplete narrative. The ‘‘lonely and isolated’’ migrants to the city supposedly remain that way for the rest of their lives. Those lonely people presumably have no capacity for friendship; they are unable to get together with others to overcome their powerlessness, and so forth.

Many academics in other fields, however, continue to give the theory considerable credence. It is a favorite of specialists in the literary sciences, of those in the humanities. The theory, as noted, is also a favorite of journalists, of social affairs commentators, of writers, dramatists, and poets.

This paradoxical result requires some explanation. The literature dealing with ‘‘the human condition’’ has a distinctive bifurcated character. The work produced by research-oriented scholars ordinarily has a very limited audience, most of it appearing in limited-circulation journals for small groups of specialists. Those specialists rarely attempt to bring their findings to the attention of larger audiences. Attempts to correct misinformation conveyed by the mass media are also infrequent. The producers of mass media content show an opposite neglect: they rarely contact academic

specialists to inquire about the lessons found in the latest research.

Those who argue and defend mass society claims, on the whole, have an enormous audience. Writing in 1956, Daniel Bell, the noted sociologist, stated that apart from Marxism, the mass society theory was probably the most influential social theory in the Western world. Four decades years later, the conclusion is still valid. The intellectual productions based on this theory reach millions of susceptible members of the upper and uppermiddle classes, most especially those referred to as the ‘‘intelligentsia.’’

The mass society theory proves well-nigh indestructible. It continues to have wide and enthusiastic support in some circles regardless of any and all countering evidence. Some people know the relevant evidence but engage in various ‘‘theo- ry-saving’’ efforts, essentially ad hoc dismissals of fact. Some people, of course, simply do not know the available evidence, because of the compartmentalization of academia. Some academics do not make the effort required to find out what is happening elsewhere. Some others appear to be indifferent to evidence.

REFERENCES

Bell, Daniel 1961 ‘‘America as a Mass Society: A Critique.’’ End of Ideology: On the Exhaustion of Political Ideas in the Fifties. New York: Collier.

Campbell, Angus, Philip E. Converse, and Willard L. Rodgers 1976 The Quality of American Life: Perceptions, Evaluations, and Satisfactions. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

——— 1981 The Sense of Well-Being in America: Recent Patterns and Trends. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Fischer, Claude S. 1981 To Dwell Among Friends: Personal Networks in Town and City. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

——— 1984 The Urban Experience, 2nd ed. San Diego, Calif.: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

Giner, Salvador 1976 Mass Society. London: Martin

Robertson.

Halebsky, Sandor 1976 Mass Society and Political Conflict: Toward a Reconstruction of Theory. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Hamilton, Richard F. forthcoming ‘‘Mass Society, Pluralism, Bureaucracy: Explication, Critique, and Assessment.’’ Westport, Conn.: Praeger.

———, and James D. Wright 1986 The State of the Masses. New York: Aldine.

Jones, J. R. 1966 ‘‘England.’’ In Hans Rogger and Eugen Weber, eds., The European Right: A Historical Profile. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press.

Kornhauser, William 1959 The Politics of Mass Society. Glencoe: Free Press.

Lee, Barrett A., R. S. Oropesa, Barbara J. Metch, and Avery M. Guest 1984 ‘‘Testing the Decline-of-Com- munity Thesis: Neighborhood Organizations in Seattle, 1929 and 1979.’’ American Journal of Sociology

89:1161–1188.

Nisbet, Robert A. (1953) 1962 The Quest for Community: A Study in the Ethics of Order and Freedom, New York: Oxford University Press. Reissued as Community and Power. New York: Oxford University Press.

Reich, Charles 1970 The Greening of America. New York:

Random House.

Sennett, Richard, ed. 1969 Classic Essays on the Culture of Cities. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.

RICHARD F. HAMILTON

MATE SELECTION THEORIES

Social scientists who study the family have long been interested in the question ‘‘Who marries whom?’’ On one level, the study of mate selection is conducted from the perspective of family as a social institution. Emphasis is placed on the customs that regulate choice of mates. A counterperspective views the family as an association. This perspective centers instead on the couple and attempts to understand the process of marital dyad formation. Both of these perspectives generate an abundance of knowledge concerning mate selection. Beginning primarily in the 1920s, theoretical and empirical work in the area of mate selection has made great advances in answering the fundamental question ‘‘Who marries whom?’’

INSTITUTIONAL PERSPECTIVES ON MATE

SELECTION

The purview of anthropologists has centered on kinship structures as they relate to mate selection in arranged marriage systems. Sociological inquiry that sees the family as a social institution in the context of the larger society focuses instead on the

evolution of courtship systems as societies modernize. In this respect, it is important to note the contributions of scholars such as Bernard Murstein (1974, 1976) who have pointed out the importance of cultural and historical effects on courtship systems that lead to marriage.

Historical evidence suggests that, as a society modernizes, changes in the courtship system reflect a movement toward autonomous courtship systems. Thus, parentally arranged marriages diminish in industrialized cultures, since arranged marriages are found in societies in which strong extended kinship ties exist or in which the marriage has great significance for the family and community in terms of resources or status allocation. As societies modernize, arranged marriages are supplanted by an autonomous courtship system in which free choice of mate is the preferred form. These autonomous courtship systems are also referred to as ‘‘love’’ marriages, since the prerequisite for selection of a mate has shifted from the need to consolidate economic resources to that of individual choice based on love. Of course, family sociologists are quick to point out that the term ‘‘love marriage’’ is somewhat of a misnomer, since many other factors operate in the mate selection process.

Family social scientists have tried to understand the human mate selection process by using a variety of data sources and theoretical perspectives. The most global or macro approaches have made use of vital statistics such as census data or marriage license applications to study the factors that predict mate selection. Attention has been placed on social and cultural background characteristics such as age, social class, race, religion, and educational level.

THEORY BEHIND THE MARRIAGE

MARKET

Before considering individual background characteristics and interpersonal dynamics of the mate selection process, it is important to note the increasing attention given to the marriage market and the marriage squeeze. The term ‘‘marriage market’’ refers to the underlying assumption that we make choices about dating and marriage partners in a kind of free-market situation. Bargaining and exchange take place in contemporary selection processes, and these exchanges are based on

common cultural understandings about the value of the units of exchange. The basis for partner selection plays out in a market situation that is influenced by common cultural values regarding individual resources, such as socioeconomic status, physical attractiveness, and earning potential. Numerous studies have concluded that gender roles play a significant part in the marriage market exchange process, with men trading their status and economic power for women’s attractiveness and domestic skills. But changes in contemporary gender roles suggest that as women gain an economic viability of their own, they are less likely to seek marriage partners (Waite and Spitze 1981). Thus, the marriage market and the units of exchange are not constant but subject to substantial variation in terms of structure and selection criteria.

The premise that marital partners are selected in a rational choice process is further extended in the study of the effects of the marriage squeeze. The ‘‘marriage squeeze’’ refers to the gender imbalance that is reflected in the ratio of unmarried, available women to men. In theory, when a shortage of women occurs in society, marriage and monogamy are valued. But when there are greater numbers of women, marriage as an institution and monogamy itself take on lesser importance. Similarly, when women outnumber men, their gender roles are thought to be less traditional in form (Guttentag and Secord 1983).

The marriage squeeze has important effects for theoretical consideration, especially in studying the lower rates of marriage among AfricanAmerican women in today’s society. Due to a shortage of African-American men, coupled with greater expectations on the part of African-Ameri- can women of finding mates with economic resources (Bulcroft and Bulcroft 1993), the interplay between the marriage squeeze and motivational factors to marry suggest that future research needs to disentangle the individual and structural antecedents in mate selection. These studies also point to the complexity of mate selection processes as they take place within both the social structure and cultural gender role ideologies.

The marriage squeeze is further exacerbated by the marriage gradient, which is the tendency for women to marry men of higher status. In general, the trend has been for people to marry within the

same socioeconomic status and cultural background. But men have tended to marry women slightly below them in age and education (Bernard 1982). The marriage gradient puts high-status women at a disadvantage in the marriage market by limiting the number of potential partners. Recent changes in the educational status of women, however, suggest that these norms of mate selection are shifting. As this shift occurs, one can speculate that the importance of individual characteristics such as physical attractiveness, romantic love, and interpersonal communication will increasingly come to play important roles in the mate selection process in postmodern society (Beck and BeckGersheim 1995; Schoen and Wooldredge 1989).

Norms of endogamy require that people marry those belonging to the same group. Concomitantly, exogamous marriages are unions that take place outside certain groups. Again, changes in social structures, ethnic affiliations, and mobility patterns have dramatically affected the modern marriage market. More specifically, exogamy takes place when marriage occurs outside the family unit or across the genders. Taboos and laws regulating within-family marriage (i.e., marriages considered to be incestuous that occur between brother and sister, mother and son, etc.) and marriage to same-sex partners are examples of the principle of endogamy. Recent attempts have been made to legally recognize same-sex marriages, thus suggesting that norms of endogamy are tractable and subject to changes in the overall values structure of a society or social group.

In addition to endogamy and exogamy, the marriage market is further defined by norms of homogamy and heterogamy. Mate selection is considered to be homogenous when a partner is selected with similar individual or group characteristics. When these characteristics differ, heterogamy is evidenced. The norm of homogamy continues to be strong in American society today, but considerable evidence suggests we are in a period of change regarding social attitudes and behaviors with regard to interracial and interfaith unions.

Recent data suggest that the number of interracial marriages for African-Americans has increased from 2.6 percent in 1970 to 12.1 percent in 1993 (Besharov and Sullivan 1996). But AfricanAmerican mate selection operates along lines of

endogamy to a larger degree than do the mate selection processes of Asian-American, Native American, or other nonwhite groups. Nearly onehalf of all Asian-Americans marry non-Asians (Takagi 1994) and over half of all Native-Ameri- cans marry non–Native Americans (Yellowbird and Snipp 1994).

Similarly, rates of interfaith marriage have increased. For example, only 6 percent of Jews chose to marry non-Jewish partners in the 1960s. Today nearly 40 percent of Jews marry non-Jewish partners (Mindel et al. 1988).

The background characteristics of age and socioeconomic status also demonstrate norms of endogamy. The Cinderella story is more of a fantasy than a reality, and self-help books with titles such as How to Marry a Rich Man (Woman) have little basis for success.

The conditions of postmodern society are shaping mate selection patterns as they relate to endogamy and homogamy. The likelihood of marrying across social class, ethnic, and religious boundaries is strongly affected by how homogeneous (similar) the population is (Blau et al. 1982). In large cities, where the opportunity structures are more heterogeneous (diverse), rates of intermarriage are higher, while in small rural communities that demonstrate homogeneous populations, the norm of endogamy is even more pronounced.

Again, the complex interplay between the marriage market and individual motives and preferences is highlighted. The extent to which marriage outside one’s social group is the result of changing preferences and attitudes or largely the result of shifting opportunity structures, known as marriage market conditions, is not clear at this time (Surra 1990).

The factors that operate in the selection process of a mate also function in conjunction with opportunity structures that affect the potential for social interaction. The evidence suggests that propinquity is an important factor in determining who marries whom. Thus, those who live geographically proximate to each other are more likely to meet and marry. Early work by James Bossard (1932) shows that at the time of the marriage license application, about 25 percent of all couples live within two city blocks of each other.

Bossard’s Law, derived from his empirical findings, states ‘‘the proportion of marriages decreases steadily and markedly as the distance between the consenting parties increases.’’ Or, put more simply, ‘‘Cupid’s wings are best suited for short flights.’’ Of course, current American society has changed since the time Bossard studied mate selection patterns in Philadelphia, and there is a tendency to think that as society becomes more mobile propinquity plays less of a role in the choice of a mate. Propinquitous mate selection does not mean nonmobility, however. It is simply the case that the influence of propinquity shifts as the individual geographically shifts. Thus, one is likely to marry someone who is currently near than someone previously propinquitous. The overriding effect of propinquity is that people of similar backgrounds will meet and marry, since residential homogamy remains a dominant feature of American society. However, changing marriage patterns, such as delaying age of first marriage, will impact the strength of propinquity in the mate selection process by expanding the opportunity structures and breaking down homogenous marriage markets.

One interesting area of research that often goes overlooked in discussions of the correlates of mate selection concerns homogamy of physical attractiveness. Based on the equity theory of physical attractiveness, one would expect that persons who are similar in physical attractiveness levels would marry. Many experimental designs have been conducted to test the effects of physical attractiveness on attraction to a potential dating partner. In general, the experimental conditions have yielded the findings that the more highly attractive individuals are the most desired as dating partners. But studies of couples actually involved in selecting a mate or who are already married support the notion that individuals who are similar in attractiveness marry on their own level. Thus, while attractiveness is a socially valued characteristic in choice of a mate, the norms of social exchange dictate that we select a partner who is similar in attractiveness and is thus attainable. It is only when other highly valued factors such as wealth, wit, or intelligence compensate for deficits in attractiveness that inequity of physical attractiveness in mate selection might occur.

In review, theories of mate selection are more often applied to the study of personality characteristics or process orientations than to marriage

market conditions. It is important to note, however, that the basic assumption is that the marriage market operates in a social exchange framework. Men and women make selections under relative conditions of supply and demand with units of exchange. The market is further shaped by cultural norms such as endogamy and homogamy that can further restrict or expand the pool of eligibles.

NEED COMPLEMENTARITY

While earlier work on the correlates of mate selection focused on homogamy of background characteristics, the work of Robert Winch (1958) set the stage for further investigation into the hypothesis that ‘‘opposites attract.’’ That is, persons of dissimilar values or personality traits would marry. While value theorists speculated that similarity of values and personality would lead to great affiliation and propensity to marry, Winch posited that persons select mates whose personality traits are complementary (opposite) to their own. Inherent in Winch’s theoretical work is the notion that certain specific trait combinations will be gratifying to the individuals involved. For example, a submissive person would find it gratifying or reciprocal to interact with a mate who had a dominant personality. Winch developed twelve such paired complementary personality traits, such as domi- nant-submissive and nurturant-receptive, for empirical testing using a very small sample of recently married couples. In Winch’s work, as well as the work of others, the notion that complementarity of traits was the basis for marriage was not supported by the data.

Although empirical support for need complementarity is lacking, the concept remains viable in the study of mate selection. The appeal of the concept rests in its psychological origins, as work prior to Winch’s focused primarily on structural and normative influences in mate selection. The work of Winch set the stage for research commencing in the 1960s that began to examine the processes of mate selection on the dyadic level.

PROCESS THEORIES OF MATE SELECTION

The process of selecting a mate received considerable attention beginning in the 1970s. The basic form these theories take follows the ‘‘filter theory’’