Narcotizing dysfunction

Narcotizing dysfunction is a theory that as mass media inundates people on a particular issue they become apathetic to it, substituting knowledge for action. It is suggested that the vast supply of communications Americans receive may elicit only a superficial concern with the problems of society, while importance of real action is neglected, and this superficiality often cloaks mass apathy. Thus, it is termed "dysfunctional" as it assumed it is not in the best interests of the people who compose modern complex society to form a social mass that is politically apathetic and inert. The term narcotizing dysfunction was coined in the article Mass Communication, Popular Taste and Organized Social Action, by Paul F. Lazarsfeld, and Robert K. Merton.