THE COMMUNICATION EPIPHANY NEW MEDIA AND THE REDEMPTION OF THE OTHER

Abstract

This paper argues that the birth of the mass media dealt a fatal blow to the communication equality that existed in the pre-industrial
tradition-bound societies, creating instead a communication inequality that supported and nurtured a power inequality which
empowered some and deprived others, thereby creating unbridgeable divides at various levels and in various forms. It points to the somewhat fascist character of the mass media in not just muffling the participation of the other but also in subverting
the very semantic connotation of the process of communication, so much so that mass communication has come to be seen as an
unidirectional process which could at its best peak to a reactive level.