Works change hands in the art market. So the media industries are not the only institutions concerned with the economic valorization of symbolic forms. Barr in the modem world they are certainly among the most important of these institutions, and those most likely to impinge on the day-to-day lives of most individuals.
The third characteristic of mass communication is that it institutes a structured break between the production of symbolic forms and their reception. In all types of mass communication, the context of production is generally separate from the context or contexts of reception. Symbolic good are produced in one context or set of contexts (namely, the institutions which form the media industries) and transmitted to recipients located in contexts which are distant and diverse (such as the varied settings of domestic households). Moreover, unlike many other case of communication involving a separation of contexts, in the case of mass communication the flow of messages is, as I noted earlier, predominantly one- way. The context of production is not also (or not to the same extent) a context of reception, nor are the contexts of reception also (or to the same extent) contexts of production. Hence the flow of messages is a structured flow in which the capacity of recipients flow in which the capacity of recipients to intervene in or contribute to the process of production is strictly circumscribed.
This characteristic of mass communication has important implications for processes of production and reception. On the side of production, it means that the personnel involved in producing and transmitting media messages are generally deprived of the direct and continuous forms of feedback characteristic of face-to-face interaction. Hence the processes of production and transmission are characterized by a distinctive kind of indeterminacy, sine these processes take place in the absence of cues provided by recipients.(compare the difference between a speech delivered to an assembled audience, which can express approval or disapproval by laughing, clapping or remaining silent, and a speech delivered to a television camera.) of course, media personnel have developed a variety of techniques to cope with this indeterminacy, from the use of well-tried formulae which have a predictable audience appeal (such as television series and film sequels) o market research and the regular monitoring of audience size and response.
On the side of reception, the structured break implies that the recipients of mediated messages are, so to speak, left to their own devices. Recipients can make of a message more or less what they will, and the producer is not there to elaborate or to correct possible misunderstanding. It also implies that recipients are in a fundamentally unequal position with regard to the communicative process. They are, by the very nature of mass communication, unequal partners in the process of symbolic exchange. Compared with the individuals involved in the processes of production and transmission, the recipients of mediated messages have relatively little power to determine the topic and content of communication. But this does not imply that they are powerless, nor does it imply that they are simply the passive spectators of a show over which they have little or no control