The transformation of the uses and functions of public communication in rural areas (Study of a Galician parish)

Abstract

The aim of this article is to show the results of on-sight investigation carried out by the author in a small Spanish rural community. This research analyses the role of the Mass Media and other mediator institutions in the construction of the social reality and the cultural representations of the ethnic group. It has all been analysed in the context of a cultural change and social transformation, from a traditional agrarian society of subsistence and self-sufficiency to a modern capitalist society, as well as finding out how those transformations correspond to a parallel change in the different types of public communication systems. The results of the investigation prove the existence of some underlying laws in Martin Serrano’s social theory of communications; they certify that the influence of the Mass Media is only relative; that McLuhan’s hypothesis of the existence of a global village is not satisfactory, and that the medium is not necessarily the message, since mediation depends more on the socio-cultural codes of the members of the ethnic group than on the mere display and use of a fixed communicative technology.