Meyrowitz No Sense Of Place

Joshua Meyrowitz - No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior. 1986 Oxford University Press
Most research on mass media has focused on "message content" (Meyrowitz p.13). Following the hypodermic model - Media in which information is put directly into the bloodline of the viewer.
The concern is with media messages, not with different patterns of information flow fostered by different media." Focusing on separate from the larger social world denies the ways everyday life influences and is influenced by mediums.
The article talks about how people feel uncomfortable upon entering a new social situation, where they do not know the codes for behavior. Normally when social situations are analyzed we tend to focus on them as unique, and disregard those behaviors that have became natural. Erving Goffman's situational theory can help explain the effects media behavior have on society. Goffman explained social life through the metaphor of a drama People play multiple roles on stage, changing depending on the audience. Goffman believes that even when people are doing nothing, they are emitting energy adjusting their behaviors to the situation they are in.
"The selves we project are not simply masks we slip on, therefore, but personalities we become attached to.The longer we play a given role, the more the role comes to seem real, not only to our audiences, but also to ourselves" (Meyrowitz p. 31).
Goffman can be read as providing a way to bridge the extreme positions of scholars who believe in complete human agency and at the other end of the spectrum focus on stimulus. In between lies the space to see the interaction between freedom and domination.