The flow approach and the distance between ‘serious’ and ‘entertainment’ mass communication*
Communication roots in the context of environmental culture and communicative inter-textuality. Till now analytics of transmissive communication have paid more attention to analysis of the substance of contents. The communicative studies have been less focused on dislocation of communicative effect.
The experience of the media and PR practice over the recent years shows that the presence of digital communication bonds has largely defined the expansion of new forms of communication. Newszak, or news converted into entertaining, is becoming more and more common not only in the media but also in business communication, including PR.
The distance between ‘serious’ and ‘entertainment’ mass communication is disappearing gradually.
The niche of good journalism is replaced by conditions of ‘good goods’, substantially defining the pattern of substance.
Instead of the item-oriented form of a message increasingly appears the flow-oriented or the fact flow approach. In the history of television CNN was the first to apply the approach, due to the necessity of a continuous supplementation/updating of current news.
Advertisers also requested that. As a result, the most recent news, instead of the most essential, became significant, automatically shifting the accent from the analytical information to descriptive. This approach offers ‘all in a row’, presenting in the order of time flow instead of the importance, creating the illusion that all news is equally important or insignificant.
From here on the so-called parachute–journalist syndrome spreads in the practice of mass media, i.e., a reporter, while in a foreign country, instantly reports on what he/she sees, instead of analysing events in their context using his/her basic competence.
The flow approach largely defines the domination of the form of the message over its content. It also determines the ability of the public to solely perceive stealth conflicts, because events beyond the radar system of the public competence, for most part of recipients, are and stay incomprehensible.
Currently, the flow approach is also dominating over the digital communication, where personalised avatars are acting instead of individuals (social networks Draugiem, Facebook, etc.) and according to Jürgen Habermas „in an up-to date project our mass communication has become an imagined reality on a computer screen”.
The flow approach is also ensured by the use of Photoshop features in the media and mass communication practice, largely transforming the reality and devaluating the quality of contents in the name of form.
Sandra Veinberg 