2. 外语
  3. We are told that the mass media are the greatest organs for enlightenment that the world has yet seen; that in Britain, for inst

We are told that the mass media are the greatest organs for enlightenment that the world has yet seen; that in Britain, for inst

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问题     We are told that the mass media are the greatest organs for enlightenment that the world has yet seen; that in Britain, for instance, several million people see each issue of the current affairs programme, Panorama. It is true that never in human history were so many people so often and so much exposed to so many intimations about societies, forms of life, attitudes other than those which obtain in their own local societies. This kind of exposure may well be a point of departure for acquiring certain important intellectual and imaginative qualities; width of judgment, a sense of the variety of possible attitudes. Yet in itself such exposure does not bring intellectual or imaginative development. It is no more than the masses of stone which lie around in a quarry and which may, conceivably, go to the making of a cathedral. The mass media cannot build the cathedral, and their way of showing the stones does not always prompt others to build. For the stones are presented within a self-contained and self-sufficient world in which, it is implied, simply to look at them, to observe—fleetingly—individually interesting points of difference between them, is sufficient in itself.
    Life is indeed full of problems on which we have to—or feel we should try to—make decisions, as citizens or as private individuals. But neither the real difficulty of these decisions, nor their true and disturbing challenge to each individual, can often be communicated through the mass media. The disinclination to suggest real choice, individual decision, which is to be found in the mass media is not simply the product of a commercial desire to keep the customers happy. It is within the grain of mass communications. The organs of the Establishment, however well-intentioned they may be and whatever their form(the State, the Church, voluntary societies, political parties), have a vested interest in ensuring that the public boat is not violently rocked, and will so affect those who work within the mass media that then will be led insensibly towards forms of production which, though they go through the motions of dispute and enquiry, do not break through the skin to where such enquiries might really hurt. They will tend to move, when exposing problems, well within the accepted cliche assumptions of democratic society and will tend neither radically to question these cliches nor to make a disturbing application of them to features of contemporary life. They will stress the "stimulation" the programmes give, but this soon becomes an agitation of problems for the sake of the interest of that agitation in itself; they will therefore, again, assist a form of acceptance of the status quo. There are exceptions to this tendency, but they are uncharacteristic.
    The result can be seen in a hundred radio and television programmes as plainly as in the normal treatment of public issues in the popular press. Different levels of background in the readers or viewers may be assumed, but what usually takes place is a substitute for the process of arriving at judgment. Programmes such as this are noteworthy less for the "stimulation" they offer than for the fact that that stimulation(repeated at regular intervals)may become a substitute for, and so a hindrance to, judgments carefully arrived at and tested in the mind and on the pulses. Mass communications, then do not ignore intellectual matters; they tend to castrate them, to allow them to sit on the side of the fireplace, sleek and useless, a family plaything.
In the passage the author criticizes the mass media for______ .
选项 A、their widening the gap between readers or viewers
B、their failing to reach any definite conclusions over what they report
C、their setting too intellectual a standard
D、their catering for a small number of audiences
答案B
解析 细节题。根据第二段“But neither the real difficulty of these decisions，northeir true and disturbing challenge to each individual，can often be communicated throughthe mass media．The disinclination to suggest real choice，individual decision，which is to be found in the mass media is not simply the product of a commercial desire to keep the customers happy．”可知，作者批判大众媒体不能就所报道的内容给出绝对真实的结论。所以正确答案是B选项。
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