Abstract

In an interview published by «Die Woche» , Hans Georg Gadamer declared that «television is the chain of slaves where modern humanity is tied. The contemporary élite of information own the key to this chain and its specific aim is to reduce humanity to slavery through images». According to this point of view, the political and social function of television is to «control» and «accustom» the human mind, human ideas and human capacity of judgement. From this perspective, Gadamer’s criticism is against the mass media «system» which threatens, through industry of communication and information, to transform democracy into oligarchy. As in Gadamer, also in the sociological theory of Jürgen Habermas, the mass media are seen as being controlled by political and economic «forces», which have an interest in «manipulating» the audience. This compromises the legitimacy of the communicative power exercised by the mass media. The political manipulation is a kind of opinion making, where the media not only transmit debates, but also create and shape them. The commercial manipulation uses the carefully designed and tested psychological methods of advertising. The media explore themes and identification possibilities that appeal to the unconscious dispositions of the audience in order to attract attention. Human «tragedy» in modern society is that our scientific-technological «automatisms» drive us too far from real and pure authenticity of feelings and emotions of the human being. Images and mass media systems determine passivity in the human mind and they do not develop experience, real motivations, spontaneity: they are not able to form creative and critical minds.