Empathy and Mass Communication

 The power of identifying oneself mentally with a person or object of choice—is what
empathy means literally. Daniel Lerner used this term with a particular emphasis on the
aspirations for a new identity.

Importance of Empathy

 Lerner identified development with modernization and social change. The four indices of
development were urbanization, literacy, media exposure and political participation.
According to Lerner people need to have mobile personality (ability to undertake new
tasks and experience), be empathetic and participate in the process of development to
develop.

 When people are mobile, they are ready to look for something new and the empathy
makes them search for something new. Mobility and empathy make them more change
prone. Participation, both political and social leads to development. Participation has to
be at several layers of society and eventually at all levels of society.

Lerner suggested that media exposure, political participation and developing psychic
empathy are necessary to make people participative to change their traditional beliefs and
attitudes. Modern society is a participant society and it works by consensus.