Abstract

In a mass, (1) far fewer people express opinions than receive them; for the community of publics becomes an abstract collection of individuals who receive impressions from the mass media. (2) The communications that prevail are so organized that it is difficult or impossible for the individual to answer back immediately or with any effect. (3) The realization of opinion in action is controlled by authorities who organize and control the channels of such action. (4) The mass has no autonomy from institutions; on the contrary, agents of authorized institutions penetrate this mass, reducing any autonomy it may have in the formation of opinion by discussion. (C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite, 1956: pp. 303–4, quoted, approvingly, in the closing pages of Jürgen Habermas’ The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, 1962, transl. 1989: p. 249)