New Media through the lens of Critical Theory

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MS 1301 Introduction to Computer Graphics blabla

MS 2306 From Hypertext to Cybertext

Title

New Media through the lens of Critical Theory

MS 1301 Introduction to Computer Graphics blabla Title

What is this lecture about?

New Media in the Context of Critical Theory

Researching New Media from asocio-economic perspective(Marxism, Post-Marxism, Critical Theory)

Example (not a good one though...)

The power of the Web in redefining existingeconomic relations between producers andconsumers.

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• Introduction to a range of ideas, concepts,theories and vocabulary referring to Marxist Essentials

• Strong position in Media Studies (looking at media ownership, media meanings etc.)

•’Critical Theory’ (M.Horkheimer)subsumes different schools of of thought sharing a normative’approach: The world needs to be changed!




Marx(ism)is dead !?“Marxist theory (...) stillhelps us to explain whycertain things don't seem toget better faster."

Belsey 2002

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Marxism


Karl Marx (1818-1883),philosopher, political economist, historian

"The philosophers have onlyinterpreted the world, invarious ways. The point,however, is to change it."


Marxism


Domination

Class

Base

Superstructure

Capital

Exploitation

Ideology

AlienationCommodity Fetishism

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Marxism


Essential assumption:

Economic relations determine social relationsand hence, the history of man


Marxism


"The history of all hitherto existing society isthe history of class struggles. Freeman andslave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf,guild-master and journeyman, in a word,oppressor and oppressed, stood in constantopposition to one another, carried on (...) afight that each time ended, either in arevolutionary re-constitution of society at large,or in the common ruin of the contendingclasses."

Marx 1848: The Communist Manifest

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Marxism


Economy determines sociality

"At the heart of this analysis [Marxism]is the claim that how a society produces itsmeans of existence (its particular 'mode ofproduction') ultimately determines thepolitical, social and cultural shape of thatsociety." Storey 2001

Conclusion: Analysis of social phenomenaneeds to determine socio-economic relations


Marxism


Seven Essentials(Price 1993, Media Studies)

1. A society is a human organisationat a particular stage in its economicand social development.

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Marxism


Seven Essentials:

2. Our society is a capitalist one inwhich the population is divided intoclasses; broadly speaking intoworking, middle and ruling classes.


Marxism


Seven Essentials:

3. There are different classesbecause some groups own the meansof production, while others have onlytheir labour to sell.

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Marxism


Seven Essentials:

4. Individuals alone have little or noinfluence on the state.


Marxism


Seven Essentials:

5. One of the major sources ofoppression is the family, as a resultof its being maintained by capitalism;equality will come through revolutionwhen economic injustices will beremoved.

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Marxism


Seven Essentials:

6. Power in society can be found inthe state, which is the politicalinstrument of the capitalist class; theworking class has a kind of power,which comes into being when it actsas a conscious revolutionarycollective.


Marxism


Seven Essentials:

7. The mass media exist to maintainthe capitalist state in power.

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Marxism: Class


People with the same status in a societal Structure sharing interests & behaviour


Marxism: Class


People with the same status in a societal Structure sharing interests & behaviour

Haves Have nots

Capital Labour

own means of give their labour production to be able to consume

Dominating class Alienated, exploitedclass

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Marxism: Class


The German paradox (until 1989):

Arbeitgeber Arbeitnehmer “those who ‘give’ work” “those who ‘take’ work”

West: employers employees

East: employees employers


Marxism: Base & Superstructure


The structural spheres of a society:

Base • 'forces of production' (raw materials, technologies, workers - skills, education)• 'relations of productions' (class relations of those engaged in production);

Superstructure• institutions (political, legal, cultural, educational)• forms of social consciousness (political, religious, cultural, philosophical) generated by the institutions

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Marxism: Base & Superstructure


Twofolded/mutual relationship:

The Base is said to condition contentand form of Superstructure;

the Superstructure both expressesand legitimates the Base.

---> a rigid grid that is beingassociated with 'structuralism'


Marxism: Ideology


Refers to a supposedly dominant ideologythat supports the interests of the dominantclass

"The class which has the means ofmaterial production at its disposal hascontrol at the same time over the means ofmental production, so that thereby (...) theideas of those who lack the means ofmental production are subject to it.”Marx & Engels: The German Ideology

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Marxism: Ideology


Ideology = false consciousness

"From this perspective the mass mediadisseminate the dominant ideology: thevalues of the class which owns andcontrols the media.”Chandler 2001

This static model excludes any process of(often very subtle) negotiation andsubcultural production > look at post-marxist and post-modern theorists


Marxism: Determinism


"It is in fact not the consciousnessdominating life but the very lifedominating consciousness."

Marx, Die deutsche Ideologie

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e.g. Technological Determinism


"In its most extreme form, the entireform of society is seen as beingdetermined by technology: newtechnologies transform society atevery level, including institutions, socialinteraction and individuals (...)'Human factors' and socialarrangements are seen as secondary."

Chandler (2000) ‘Technological or Media Determinism’,http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/tecdet/tecdet.html)




“The handmill gives you society with thefeudal lord; the steam-mill with theindustrial capitalist.”Marx: The poverty of philosophy

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Economic determinism(Economic relations are the basisfor all social phenomena)

Ideological determinism(base/superstructure model;domination of a certain ideology)

Technological determinism(tools and means of productionshape society


Ideological battlefield


Who are the opponents in the ICT debate?(The quick-and-bold-answer):

Marxists Neo-liberalsCritical Theorists ManovichsLefties Information-Society-

Theorists

Post-Modernists

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Post-Marxist theorists


Three different schools of thought(Dyer-Witheford, N. 1999, Cyber-Marx):

• Scientific socialists [aka objectivist,classical, neo-orthodox]

• Neo-Luddites [mainly followers of theFrankfurt School]

• Post-Fordists [including Post-Modernists]




Scientific socialistse.g. Ernst Mandel

Due to falling rate of profit, new technologieswill accelerate the revolution and ultimatelydefeat the capital, bursting apartold relations of productions

Problem: ”Scientific socialism effectivelyliquidates human agency, and substitutes forit an inexorable, and ultimately sinister,technological automatism."

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Neo-Luddites*“Technology-as-domination theorists”e.g. Robins & Webster

New Technologies do not underminecapitalism, but will consolidate and deepencapitalist power; new technologies as newmeans of domination

* Luddites: social movement of English workers in the early1800 protesting violently against changes produced by theIndustrialisation




Neo-Luddites

"Confronting assembly lines, napalmmanufacturers, nuclear power plants,growing numbers of theoreticians andactivists rediscovered the dark, nightmarishaspects of Marx's writing on technology"Dyer-Witheford, N. (1999) p.99

This stance is mainly reflected in work of the‘Frankfurt School’

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Neo-Luddites

Problem: Individual is subject totechnological exploitation “to which the bestresponse is a reactive, heroic, but probablyhopeless neo-Luddism."




Post-Fordists (or Post-Modernists)e.g. Mark Poster, D. Kellner

Theorising a technologically mediatedreconciliation between labor and capital(Social democrats ‘new’ labour)

Technology can help us to overcome thebrutality and rigidity of modernism, allowingindividuality, niches, subcultures, andcan support democracy

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Post-Fordists (or Post-Modernists)

Problem: There is not much criticism towardsInformation Technology left; Postmodernistsand Neo-Liberals almost indistinguishable.


Critical Theory: Frankfurt School


Institut für Sozialforschung /Institute for Social Research

1923 Frankfurt/Main1933 New York1950 Frankfurt

Clearly a Marxist stance towards society andideology; however:not the Proletariat will initiate changes, butcritical reflection and reason will(> role of intellectuals)

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Theodor Adorno and Max HorkheimerDialectic of Enlightenment (1947):

Technologic rationality (Sciences and technology) have developed from means of enlightenment to means of oppression

• domination of nature has become the domination of man

• forces of production have turned to forces of destruction




Herbert MarcuseThe One-Dimensional Man (1964):

The modern subject is ‘one-dimensional’ and incapable of thinking beyond the limits of the oppressive system

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Critical Theory: Culture Industry


Binary opposition:

Culture <-> Popular Mass Culture

'Media produced for profit and the masses(by the Culture Industry) create uniformed,one-dimensional people’




Culture Industry (1944, Horkheimer,Adorno) refers to collective operationsof Mass Media

"The entertainment and advertismentconglomerates which create artificialneeds, distract dissent, and endlesslyendorse the existing order."Dyer-Witheford, N (1999) p.96

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Mass media culture is coined by'standardisation, stereotype, conservativism, mendacity,manipulated consumer goods’, in order tobenumb the people. (Lowenthal)

"The Culture Industry discourages the'masses' from thinking beyond theconfines of the present."Storey 2001


Critical Theory: Benjamin


Walter Benjamin, 1892-1940

'The Work of Art in the Ageof Mechanical Reproduction'(1935/36)

Looks at Film and Photographyas new media but has likewiseinfluenced many cyber-culturalthinkers (inseparability oforiginal and copy)

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Sees his work in Marxist tradition(introduction)

Conceptualises politics of art thatis ‘useless for fascism but helpful informulating revolutionary demands’

Although associated with FrankfurtSchool, very different approach tomass-produced culture




Believes that changes in thetechnological reproduction of cultureare changing the function and theposition of culture in society:

“technical reproduction can put thecopy of the original into situationswhich would be out of reach for theoriginal itself.”

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"For the first time in world history,mechanical reproduction emancipatesthe work of art from its parasiticaldependence on ritual. To an evergreater degree the work of artreproduced becomes the work of artdesigned for reproducibility."

Benjamin 'The Work of Art...’, Section IV




Mechanical reproduction challengesthe aura of an artwork, i.e. its sense of'authenticity', 'authority', and 'distance’

Reproduction technologies detach thecultural text or practice from the authorityand rituals of tradition.

Theme: From an auratic to ademocratic culture

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Cybernetic Capitalism


"How much faith should we place intechnology’s ability to improve our lives?"Robins & Webster 1999

• Clearly normative attitude

• ‘Information revolution’ is a myth thatdoes nothing to improve social conditions

• Cybernetic capitalism describes asystem of ongoing capitalism with a new setof highly effective instruments




Information Revolution is a 'concertedideology' of industrialists, politicians andacademics to make us believe in a new era ofwealth and abundance

“Our point is that the 'Information Revolution'is inadequately conceived (...) as a questionof technology and technological innovation.Rather, it is better understood as a matter ofdifferential (and unequal) access to, andcontrol over, information resources."Robins and Webster 1999

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ICT are being used as a means of applyingprionciples of Taylorism* to the wholesociety

Taylorism subsumes a range of methods toimprove on effectivity of labour (division oftasks, training, control)

* referrs to F.W.Taylor’s ‘Principles of scientificmanagement’ (1911)





"For what is unfolding now is thecontinuation of what was set in motion inthe early 19th. century: what we now callthe global information economy is (...) themost recent expression of the capitalistmobilisation of society.”Robins and Webster 1999

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Digital Capitalism


Dan Schiller: Digital Capitalism (2002)

The myth of the Information revolution:

"This utopian vision - Internet as salvation -expresses ancient yearnings. Historicaldetoxification through scientific knowledge: thetruth - information? - will make us free."


Digital Capitalism


“Indeed, the Internet comprises nothingless than the central production andcontrol apparatus of an increasinglysupranational market system.”Schiller 2002

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Informational Capitalism


M. Castells: The Rise of the Network Society(1996)

‘Informational Capitalism’:"an especially unforgiving (...) form ofcapitalism because it combines enormousflexibility with global reach (both of which wereabsent in previous capitalist eras) thanks tonetwork arrangements.”Webster 2002


Informational Capitalism


Networks: the domination of the space offlows over the space of places

“The network makes explicit the dynamicsby which a globally connected elite iscoming to dominate and control the lives ofthose who remain bound to the world oflocality, thus reinforcing a 'structuraldomination of the space of flows over thespace of of places'.”

Terranova 2004 (quoting Castells 1996)

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e x e r c i s e


Text: Douglas Kellner (1998) 'NewTechnologies, the Welfare State, and theProspects for Democratization'

• Work in groups of five

• Find key terms! develop a vocabulary fromthe text!

• Describe key ideas!


Critical Theory of Technology


Kellner, D. 1996: 'New Technologies, theWelfare State, and the Prospects forDemocratization'

A Critical Theory of Technology should avoid:

• utopian phantasies (computers will solve theproblems of the world)

• dystopian stands (computers are vehicles ofalienation and mere tools of capital, the state anddomination)

• technological and economic determinism

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Inclusive concept of technology:

'bad IT-use' promotes domination and oppression while undermining democracy, community, creativity,and other positive values

'good IT-use' enhances positive values such as democracy,community, freedom, self-development




Technocapitalism:• increasingly important role of technology• continued primacy of capitalist relations ofproduction

"Capitalist imperatives continue to dominateproduction, distribution, and consumption,as well as other (...) domains. Workerscontinue to be exploited by capitalists andcapital continues to be the hegemonic force- more so than ever after the collapse ofcommunism.” Kellner 1998

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Technocapitalism does not hinderindividuals to use the Web politically:

" (...) it is up to citizens to create newpublic spheres, new politics, and to use thenew technologies to discuss what kinds ofsociety we want and to oppose the societywe don't want. (...)It is up to individuals and groups topromote democratization and progressivesocial change.” Kellner 1998


• David Chandler: Marxist Media-Theoryhttp://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/marxism/marxism

.html

• Personal Homepage of Mick Underwood:http://www.cultsock.ndirect.co.uk/MUHome/cshtml/media/m

arxism.html

Other related Web-links see:http://del.icio.us/UELuk/MS2306CriticalTheoryNewMedia

Easy Reading Resources


For a complete bibliography see handout!