mass media arenas for interpersonal interactions

I have been confused for some time. The source of my confusion stems from the increasing interpersonal interactions that are taking place among a participating audience in mass media settings. Niklas Luhmann claims that with mass media no interaction can take place between senders and receivers: "Interaction is ruled out by the interposition of technology" ( The Reality of the Mass Media: 2). Similarly John Thompson asserts that because of the asymmetric relations and the lacking degree of reciprocity between producers of mass media content and the unknown audience, the form of interaction initiated by mass media has a quasi character.

Radio- and TV phone-ins and letters to editors in newspapers have a long history, and they have all been important to demonstrate a wish to include the people's voice. However, these feedback channels have hardly been significant enough to challenge the asymmetric relations between mass media institutions and their audiences.

But what happens when mass media increasingly take advantage of the possibilities of digital media? Take the chat-TV formats, of which there are a few on Norwegian TV-channels (the screen-shot to the left is borrowed from Beyer, Enli, Maasø and Ytreberg's article "Small talk makes a big difference", which will be published in Television and New Media in 2006 - remember that). Other examples are the discussions that take place in the blogs of Norwegian tabloids VG and Dagbladet. So far 508 people have commented on the Norwegian parliamentary elections on Dagbladet. These are examples of mass mediated social discussion arenas, which are not really different from regular web-boads and chats. But do they change the fundamentally asymmetric relations between mass media institutions and the audience. Hardly? The institutional setting and the mere scope of the mass media audience restrict symmetrical interaction on a large scale. Mass mediated chats are not really feedback-channels, are they?

And yes, I never seem to finish the paper where I try to deal with these issues. I never thought I could actually spend more than a year on one article. Of course I work on a few other papers as well, but it's so difficult to reach the point where I actually feel I'm done with it.