The Future of the Mass Audience

The Future of the Mass Audience focuses on how the changing technology and economics of the mass media in post-industrial society will influence public communication. Some analysts have suggested that with the growth of increasingly specialized cable television channels and electronic publishing, people will filter and pre-select news concerning only their own special interests and, as a result, cultural and political life will become increasingly polarised. This study demonstrates, however, that the movement towards fragmentation will be modest. It concludes that the economies of scale for electronic media put natural constraints on special interest, small audience programming.W. Russell Neuman is the author of 'The Future of the Mass Audience', published 1992 under ISBN 9780521413473 and ISBN 0521413478.