BEYOND
MEDIA OF CRITICAL
Nildo Viana
The concepts of cultural industry have some conceptual and
theoretical problems that hinder more than collaborate with a better view of
this phenomenon. This article is an outline of a more extensive work in
preparation referring to a mode of communication theory in capitalist society.
Because of this, we will only start as the questioning of the cultural industry
theory, which serves as a starting point to think about a new theory of
communication in capitalist society.
The cultural industry concepts, mass media, mass culture,
among others, suffer from the lack of adequate methodological and conceptual
basis. Despite the influence of Marxism in many elaborations on the cultural
industry, the analysis actually do not use the dialectical method and end up
falling in anti-dialectical position, even using the dialectic word or saying
it to adopt such a method. On the other hand, and more serious, since produced
such conceptions, they end up becoming obligatory references and create a
linguistic armor impeding the intellectual advancement of the communication
phenomenon in capitalist society. The problem of language is critical because
awareness to use as mediating element to develop, and when the language is
reified, it ends up effecting a reification of consciousness. Considering that
we live in a society in which the reified consciousness prevails, then it and
the reified language mutually reinforcing.
Therefore, we will initially perform critical of some
concepts and constructs (misconceptions) to advance the analysis of the
communication process in capitalism. The classical approach to the issue is the
so-called Frankfurt School, mainly represented by Theodor Adorno, but also
relying on the contributions of Horkheimer, Marcuse, Benjamin, among others.
The position of this school is considered critical, as opposed to the
apologists call "cultural industry", including American authors.
Although the Frankfurt School has provided a good contribution to analyze this
phenomenon, there are limitations in this approach that should be exposed.
Thus, our work here will be at the same time, to criticize some approaches that
seek to work "culture industry" or "mass media", or even
"mass media", to show its limits and, in some cases, ideological,
and, second, to present the outline of an alternative that will be developed in
other work. However, due to the rudimentary state of this development process
of a communication theory in capitalist society, we will therefore present our
approach in the form of theses. Such theses form some of the basic elements of
the critique of established concepts and outline some new elements for a new
approach to communication phenomenon in capitalism.
1st THESIS:
The IDEOLOGY OF "MASS MEDIA" IS AN OBSTACLE TO BE
OVERCOME.
The first point to make is that the discussion around the
"mass media" is an obstacle to be overcome. Behind this expression
hide many problems. Firstly, focus on "media"; Secondly, the use of
the term "mass". First things first point. When speaking of
"mass media", the focus is shifted to such means. Communication is
performed in various ways and utilizing various means. But when working with
the idea of the media to refer to the problem of "big media",
notably TV, Radio, Press, etc., hence the additional term 'masses', because it
reaches a large audience. However, the initial and fundamental issue, a
critical perspective, it would not be the means used but how it performs
communication. The focus on "media" means transforming technological
or industrial issue in the main aspect to be analyzed.
The first trap of this design is to homogenize the media.
All come to have the same "essence". First, you must realize that the
Gutenberg press was a communication revolution, which differs greatly from the
TV. If we consider the radio and the Internet, we see so many profound
differences. Similarly, industrial rationale behind these media not reach all
equally. The great communication oligopolies work differently small media
companies. Thus, a major publisher has a whole bureaucratic system and
selection structure, production, dissemination, radically different
distribution of a small publishing house. The same goes for the record
companies, radio and TV, etc. Other differences could be asked, but would not
add much to what has already been said. So only are there differences? The
answer is no, because despite the many differences, there are similar elements.
The point is that the similarity is not in the nature of media itself, but in
the established mode of communication in our society, which discussed below.
The homogenization of the media is complemented by
homogenization of the "masses" which would be all the receivers of
the messages they convey. The construct "pasta" is an obstacle to the
development of a correct awareness of reality. It is actually a replacement of
another construct, called "people". The word "people" is
commonly used and is usually associated with political discourse, as when one
speaks of the "interests of the people"; "Will of the
people", etc.
"This immoderate use, although natural under the
conditions we live in, by the most varied people, and addressing also the most
diverse groups, gave the word people such a generic meaning that stripped of
any commitment to reality . In the mouth or pen of public men today - and of
course that does not happen only in Brazil - nation is an abstraction. Everyone
is free to attribute to the word people the meaning well imagine. And
particularly, be included in person in what figures to be the people. Even in
the political language - and it is at the political level that their use does
not matter, - the one magic word, the chorus to which all hold fast, formula
for all problems, sesame for all ports, has no limitations, contours, features
"( Werneck Sodre, p. 188).
Thus, the term "people" as several others
("pasta", "globalization", etc.) not only suffers from
inaccuracy, but also homogenizer and a magic word that everything responds
without replying. It is a metaphysical abstraction. However, unlike the masses
due to its use mainly in the language of institutional politics, election,
assumes a positive character. His replacement "masses", in contrast,
plays a negative role. If people can only mean the part of the poorest
population, or its entirety, so does "mass". Where the term comes
"masses"?
"... The first analyzes realize that the term 'mass'
was originally used to describe the new society of the late nineteenth century
and its respective culture. Under these conditions, in Western Europe, already
living in the middle of the Industrial Revolution, it creates social and
political conditions that determine the appearance of modern class society.
Since then, the notion of 'people' became gradually being replaced by the
concept of 'mass' "(Caldas, 1987, p. 30).
Interestingly, the author does not define this concept, but
moves on to the "mass society" and "mass culture". This
would be characterized by isolation, loss of individuality, standardization,
the individual atomization and standardized culture. However, the ideas of
"mass culture" and "mass society" are ideological. But the
initial problem lies in the very term "mass". What is mass? It is a
term that produces effects similar to the people term: is inaccurate (so much
so that does not define who is a "mass" but the "mass
culture" and "mass society") homogenizer (the batter is
homogeneous, as "the people"), and abstract-metaphysical, as there is
concretely. Thus, the masses would be homogenous as the media. But the masses,
such as people, lack uniformity. In the broad sense of these terms (while the
entire population), we must realize that there is the division of social
classes, putting numerous differences and social antagonisms, not to mention
the various subdivisions. In the narrower sense (as the poorest part of the
population, or the "lower classes"), these terms are also not
homogeneous, for the proletariat, the peasantry, the lumpenproletariat are very
different and despite similarities, can not be placed all under one label.
But now let us return to our criticism of the term
"mass media". Both sender, the media, and the receiver, the masses,
are constructs that explain nothing of social relationship in question. The big
question is to understand the communication process and their differences in
capitalist society. It is an ideological discourse. The theses of mass society
and mass culture are ideological, but we will not here carry out the criticism
of these positions, defended by American authors, because our focus here is the
thought that is considered critical and which uses the terminology means of
mass communication. Adorno had already noticed that the masses are the
"ideology of the culture industry":
"The cultural industry is the deliberate integration,
from the high of its consumers. It forces the union of domains, separated for
millennia, the top art and less art. A loss for both. The high art is seen
frustrated their seriousness by speculation about the effect; the lower loses
through its civilizing domestication, the nature element tough and rude, that it
was inherent as social control was not total. To the extent that this cultural
process industry undeniably speculates on the state of consciousness and
unconsciousness of millions of persons to whom it is addressed, the masses are
not, then the first factor, but a secondary element, a calculation element;
accessory machinery. The customer is not king, as the cultural industry would
have us believe, it is not subject of this industry, but its object. The term
mass media, which was introduced to designate the cultural industry, deviates
from the outset, the emphasis on what is harmless. It is neither the masses
first, or communication techniques as such, but the spirit which is inflated
them, namely the voice of his master. The cultural industry abuses consideration
with respect to the masses to reiterate, firm and strengthen the mentality of
these, it takes as given a priori and unchanging. It excluded everything that
this attitude could be transformed. The masses are not the measure but the
ideology of the culture industry, although the latter can not exist without
them adapt "(Adorno, 1977, p. 93).
Adorno at the same time realizes the lack of reference to
the media and the masses, can not fully overcome this reified language. Thus,
the masses are passive objects before the all-powerful cultural industry. But
Adorno just exchange one for another fetishist design as it makes the culture
industry a fetish, something so smooth and metaphysical as the media or the
masses. The same problem is in Edgar Morin, who from the 30s in the United
States and then around the world, mass culture is altered to address
"all", the "general public". Now here is confused
communication technological means with the communication or the concrete
manifestations of the media. We will address this further, however, here it is
clear that said "general public" is another face of the ideology of
the "masses."
After recognizing that the ideology of the mass media is an
obstacle to be overcome, it is necessary to overcome it effectively, not only
through criticism, but also through the explanation of the phenomenon that such
hidden ideology.
2nd THESIS:
IDEOLOGY OF CULTURAL INDUSTRY IS ANOTHER OBSTACLE TO BE
OVERCOME
As put earlier, the formulation by Adorno and Horkheimer of
the term "cultural industry" means not only the creation of a word,
but a meaning and a design, which is, after all, similar to the "media
mass communication ". Therefore, we must also overcome the ideology of
cultural industry. No doubt, like every ideology, both have elements of truth.
Also does not go into discussion the concept of Adorno and Horkheimer carry
more moments of truth than the ideology of "mass media". But Adorno
and Horkheimer are attached to the reified linguistic universe because of the
lack of use of the dialectical method and a theoretical vision broader than
capitalism, which, in turn, is derived from the lack of from the perspective of
the proletariat. This is related to the historical context in which they
produced their theses, which is the implementation of intensive-extensive
regime of accumulation (Viana, 2003; Viana, 2008). In this context, the
Frankfurt School, as a whole, despite the differences between their
representatives express a limited critique of capitalism of his day. This
reflects both a non-dialectic of cultural design industry, not observing its
contradictions and relation to class struggle (see 8th thesis), as the
non-perception of the critical-revolutionary potential of the proletariat,
arising from his alleged integration in oligopolistic capitalism, thesis
defended by Marcuse and others.
The idea of cultural industry suffers, too, in a very
limited conception of capitalism. The Frankfurt School, despite having some
influence of Marx's thought, did not come from this author capitalist theory,
except in a piecemeal manner and without further deepening. Adding to this
perception, rather limited, which had society of his time, find the reason for
this rather narrow view of capitalist dynamics. The most important point is the
exclusion of analysis of the totality of social relations, that is, the
exclusion of subordinate capitalism (at the time called "Third
World"), which led to no perception of imperialism and its effects in the
imperialist countries, such as the relative stability achieved at the expense
of exploitation of the proletariat of other countries. The weakness of the
analysis here, derived from that, it was to realize that such stability was
merely relative and that was not eternal. Hence, even the pessimism that
characterizes the majority of the representatives of the Frankfurt School.
The capitalist mode of production is expansionary, turning
everything into a commodity. In this regard, the communication also becomes
merchandise. The big question, however, is that it has a particular sector of
the capital facing the exploitation of commercial communication. From the
emergence of oligopolistic capitalism and its characteristics commanded by
intensive-extensive accumulation regime, the new needs of the production
process (such as radio, TV, etc., electronic devices that are commodities) and
means of production of consumption as a strategy to counter the downward trend
of the profit rate, strengthens or creates certain capital sectors. Including
the commercial capital and services, but also the communication capital. The
communicational capital is the one facing the capitalist investment in media
companies, increasingly oligopolistic. It is a new sector of the capital, which
already existed in embryonic form in the previous regime of accumulation, but
becomes stronger and will produce a process of concentration and increasing
centralization. So, rather than industry, a relatively neutral term and
inaccurate, it is capital, which expresses social relations of exploitation and
accumulation, as opposed to a mere production process not defined
linguistically, as industry or company. It is the rule of capital in media
companies, forming capitalist media companies that become, over time,
oligopolistic. The communicational capital does not produce culture, art. It
produces messages, dissemination, communication of artistic works, cultural or
information. Your employees are salaried, others who do not have employment are
remunerated through copyright, payment for services rendered, etc. Basically,
one thing is a popular music composer produce a song, a novelist writing a
novel, a screenwriter produce the screenplay for a film, another thing is to
commercialization via distribution of cultural products made by communicational
capital. Thus, the concept of cultural industry is vague and euphemistic, while
the concept of communicational capital is accurate and not at all euphemistic:
expresses the capitalist domination in the communication process via
technological means.
3rd THESIS:
COMMUNICATION IS A SOCIAL RELATIONSHIP
To overcome the metaphysical abstractions is necessary to
resume the conceptual foundations that make possible an analysis of the
phenomenon in question. The fundamental concept in the issue of so-called
"mass media" is the communication. The reified language also performs
the objectification of the word. Our goal is to overcome this objectification.
Communication is a social relationship. It is a relationship
between individuals and / or groups: "communication is the process by which
the meanings are transmitted between people" (Stoetzel, p. 216). A similar
way of defining communication is: "set up communications, so as any
transmission of information through (a) issuance, (b) conduct and (c) receive
(d) a" (Aranguren , p. 11). Thus, traditionally, the idea is that
communication takes place via a transmitter and a receiver, in which a message
is transmitted. However, it is not in direct or inter-relationship is to think
of a "transmitter" and "receiver" because both would be,
with rare exceptions, both senders and receivers. Thus, overcoming the
difficulties of such definitions, we can say that communication is a social
relationship in which certain individuals barter messages, which can be
information, requests, ideas, feelings, etc. .
In this respect, the distinction between sender and receiver
is overcome. However, communication can be, and indeed is distorted in certain
social relations. This is a type of communication which is occurring between
same in the same conditions. Thus, it is an equal communication. However, in
certain social relations, this egalitarian communication is replaced by an
authoritarian communication. In this context, the separation between sender and
receiver gains a certain reality. Communication between teacher / student; dad
son; employer / employee, literate / illiterate; expert / layperson, etc., it
takes the form of an authoritarian communication, in which one takes precedence
as transmitter and the other as a receiver. Thus, a participant becomes an
authority, is having at his side the repressive power, financial, cultural or
just because it is considered more "fit" for communication or for the
transmission of a message.
The communication can occur only between two individuals or
among more individuals. The communication between two individuals alike in the
same conditions take the form of transfer, being equal. Communication between
several individuals equal on equal terms, too. This is the case of
communication between brothers, students and peasants, workers, intellectuals,
in certain situations. Ie the egalitarian communication assumes that there is
equality between individuals and conditions, as, for example, two (or more)
intellectual (read, intellectual professionals) can discuss on equal terms in a
bar table, but not in the situation a lecture in which one holds a
near-monopoly of speech and the other is predominantly in the listening
position.
So what distinguishes a form of communication other is the
mode of communication. The communication mode is made socially and has, in each
concrete society, certain expressions means. The equal communication mode,
horizontal, horizontal and equitable use means, such as speech. Obviously, the
authoritarian mode of communication, vertical, you can use the same means, but
in a different way, because the dialogue between two children is different from
adult-child dialogue, or between parent and child, in most cases.
4th THESIS:
THE TECHNOLOGICAL MEANS OF COMMUNICATION HIKING TOWARDS
oligopolization
In capitalist society, the expansion of communication
technology or electronic media creates a new variety of forms of communication.
But in every society of communication classes tends to be hegemonic
authoritarian, vertical. Production of technological media, in turn, occurs in
capitalist society and according to your logic. Electronic media benefit from
technological development and serve the capital's reproduction process, to be
goods. They are part of capitalist production and reproduction circuit are
goods that are produced for profit and that are only accessible to those with
capital to acquire them. Thus, the technological media, are commodities that
generate income for certain sectors of the capital and are the means of
production to other capital sectors, which make up the sector of media
companies.
Thus, the technological media are private or state
ownership. The capitalist media companies aim to profit from the form of the
communication sector capital. Thus, communication products are goods. The
communication becomes not only authoritarian, vertical, but also commercial and
profitable. The message is no longer aim to be a medium. In this way, the
message is transformed into a commodity, which has use value and exchange
value, but the priority for the owners of the electronic media, is exchange
value, while for consumers is the use value .
The great thing is that with capitalist development and
communications sector, there is a growing process of concentration and
centralization of capital. This creates, over time, the concentration and
centralization of technological media, which become oligopolistic media, though
not because they are technological, but because it is privately owned large
companies, forming the communicational capital. So the authoritarian and
vertical character expands, becoming a powerful instrument of social control
and in the hands of a few capitalist enterprises. The big TV networks form
oligopolies that drive communication via TV. Of course in other cases there is
a greater variety, such as radio stations, but even these have networks and
links with other institutions that make it possible to acquire the capital
necessary for its existence. There is also a hierarchy, as in all capitalist
production, between mega-companies, and others, to reach the small, but in the
case of the latter, remains precariously. But the trend is the increasing
concentration and centralization of technological media in a small group of
oligopolistic firms.
The big problem, however, is not the "technological
means of communication" but in the mode of communication established by
capitalist society. It is an authoritarian mode of communication and this is
amplified with the use of technological resources, who even are created
according to the dynamics of capitalist society, both in the sense of deepening
social division of labor, the commercialization, the the authoritarian
communication. Thus, the inventors and those who finance them do not seek to
produce technologies for an egalitarian communication but authoritarian. Hence the
focus on production technologies that are used to issue, namely technological
emitting media (in which establishing a whole-oriented technology for issuing -
and not receiving - communication, or which has the ability to send a message
to many receivers) and receivers communication means (technology that allows
the "public" access to the message sent by issuers media). This
technology building model is based on the authoritative communication, based on
the distinction between sender and receiver.
So, while it creates a whole focused technology for sending
messages, as all the technological infrastructure of radio and TV stations, it
creates a whole focused technology for the reception, such as TV sets and
Radio. In other cases, there is also a similar process, but because the
technology involved is less vertical as the Internet. But in capitalist
society, even the technological means that are constitutively less vertical,
just due to the commodification process, concentration and centralization of
capital, becoming hegemonizados and dominated by the major capitalist media
companies. At first, for example, anyone can have a website, however, the most
visited, accessed, they are those of large companies, including search
services, etc. They are dominated by them.
5th THESIS:
COMMUNICATION is regulated by the STATE
The capitalist state carries out a regularization process of
the set of social relations, including communication. Through legislation is
introducing a system of censorship and control that prevents the free
expression of communication. The state's role is not limited to this, because
besides the power to legislate, control, enable (through concessions), it also
has its own technological media and use them according to their needs, not
fully commercial, but mainly political. Public networks prioritize information,
educational programming and civility, the so-called "high culture"
prioritizing political hegemony instead of profit. However, it gets stuck to
the logic of reproduction of capitalist society, and is commanded by a sector
state bureaucracy that controls the state media.
The state serves the interests of the dominant fractions of
capital, and therefore benefits the oligopolistic capital. The oligopolistic
capital of communication has expanded its force by the capitalist state, since
this hinders through legislation, control, policy concessions, access to
non-oligopolistic capitalist sectors and other sectors of society to the use of
technological media. That is why there is a whole control policy and
restrictions on the use of technological media, as seen in the fierce combat of
the state against the community and alternative radio, etc., not to mention the
current eagerness to want to control and regularize Internet. The political
intent there, but the key reason for this repression and control is primarily
to uphold the hegemony of oligopolistic capital of technological media, if only
because not all fought initiatives are opposed to capitalism, and actually rare
cases. Thus, with regard to the communication process through technological
means, the state represents the interests of the communication capital. This,
as has an immense persuasive power over the population, becoming decisive in
electoral times, just exercising great influence also in governments and in
their communication policies.
6th THESIS:
The communicational capital DOMINATES THE CULTURAL
PRODUCTION
Large oligopolistic media companies dominate cultural
production. The alternative cultural productions are not hegemonic and often
share common elements produced by oligopolistic media. This domination is
guaranteed through the process of concentration and centralization of capital
on the one hand, and by state regulation, linked to oligopolistic interests on
the other. Other cultural productions performed without the use of
technological media have extremely limited scope and results.
The oligopoly of the expansion process of the media promotes
communication imposition process that dictates the cultural, artistic and
informational production. Cultural production generally passes to be elusive
and in most cases of low quality. Are created also specialized market niches,
for the privileged social classes or specific consumer groups, such as youth.
Artistic production becomes dependent on oligopolistic companies of
communication, which can create "fashions" and impose certain
concepts, standards, productions. However, it often organizes this tax through
consultation using an experimental process, that is, releasing certain artistic
goods to see public acceptance, and if there is a relative acceptance, starts
to broaden the dissemination and propagation. The informational production is in
addition to the result of a selection guided by axiological criteria, often
repetitive and founded on a global hierarchical network, through news agencies,
television networks, etc. In addition, associated and related to, or at least
dependent of the oligopolistic media companies, there is an entire cultural
production sector (record companies, publishers, galleries, agencies, etc.)
which reinforces its trends.
Cultural production out of communicational capital of the
circuit is marginalized and influenced by it. In this regard, a wide cultural
production is carried out, but it is not disclosed, since it does not rely on
such companies and their means of dissemination. The cultural production that
reaches the majority of the population is reported by oligopolistic companies
such communication.
So the result of this communication production is the
production of a mercantile culture (not "masses", where the focus
becomes visas receivers homogeneously or negatively). The commercial culture is
a culture to the market in search of its consumer market. It relates not the
seemingly neutral mode of production to the "masses", but
communication goods (artistic, informational, etc.) which are sold to the
consumer market. The mercantile culture consists of goods that are sold or
means to bandage of other products and are therefore exposed to much of the
population, either through technological media or through commercial network
that revolves around the cultural production.
7th THESIS:
CAPITAL ONE-DIMENSIONAL COMMUNICATION communication GERA
The communication process performed by the oligopolistic
business communication through technological means, performs a one-dimensional
communication. This one-dimensional communication is manifested through the
virtual absence of exchange between sender and receiver. Besides being an
authoritarian and vertical communication, communication technology is also
one-dimensional. The reason of technological communication is one-dimensional
is due not only to the use of technological means of communication, but mainly
due to the process of concentration and centralization of its use in the hands
of large oligopolistic companies and how they are used.
Obviously, as already put such technological means are not
neutral, are made from completed social relations and with specific purposes.
However, its use is related to the property distribution process. There is a
hierarchy in the use and effectiveness of using such means, but nevertheless,
what makes the communication process mediated by more and extremely oppressive
technology is the concentration and centralization of capital, training and
hegemony of oligopolistic business communication.
These companies, in turn, not only uses emitting means of
high-tech communication, as it does in a certain way. The technological
communication mode dictated by these big companies is the imposition of
futilização, trivialization and axiology, and / or the formation of a reified
and ordinary consciousness. All this in order to play and approve the futile
way of life set in contemporary capitalist society based on consumerism and
disposable culture, next to the reproduction of dominant values and false and
ideological conceptions prevalent. The set of values, ideas, feelings, etc.,
which are passed by technological communication aimed precisely reproduce the
process of domination and reproduction of capitalism in every way: creation of
manufactured needs to achieve expanded reproduction of the consumer market,
preventing the manifestation opposition to capitalist society, numb
individuals.
8th THESIS:
The communicational capital PLAYS THE CLASS STRUGGLES
The expansion of the commodification of social relations
that occurs with the emergence of intensive-extensive regime of accumulation,
caused the birth of what has become accustomed to calling cultural industry.
Your character handler (and conservative) has been reported numerous times. The
naive view of the culture industry that considers a manifestation of the
interest of the whole society, being a product of it and, therefore, a medium
that exerts a beneficial effect on the population, playing what she wants to
see, does not hold since the emergence of the various analyzes of the cultural
industry from the classic work of Adorno and Horkheimer (1986).
For Adorno and Horkheimer, the cultural industry denies
consumers what promises you. It is a factory of illusions and superficial
consumption (Adorno & Horkheimer, 1986; Jay, 1988). These authors, the
first to use the term "cultural industry", make a severe criticism of
it. According to Adorno, "the cultural industry is the deliberate
integration, from the high of its consumers" (Adorno, 1977, p. 287). The
profit and the logic of capitalist production realize the commercialization of
art and culture, producing "cultural goods":
"The cultural industry goods are oriented such as
lecture Brecht and Suhrkamp there are already thirty years after the beginning
of their marketing and not according to their own content and their proper
figuration. The entire practice of the culture industry transfers without more,
the profit motive to spiritual creations. From the moment where the goods
ensure the life of the producers on the market, they are already contaminated
by this motivation. But they did not aim profit but to mediate way, through its
autonomous character. What is new in the cultural industry is the immediate and
confess the primacy effect, which in turn is calculated precisely in its most
typical products. The autonomy of works of art, which, it is true, almost never
existed in pure form and that has always been marked by effect connections, we
see the limit abolished by the cultural industry. With or without the conscious
will of its promoters. These are both enforcement agencies as well as those in
power. From an economic point of view, they were looking for new capital
investment opportunities in more developed countries. The old possibilities
become increasingly precarious due to the same process of concentration, which
in just around the cultural industry makes it possible as powerful institution.
A culture that, according to their own sense, not only obeyed the men but
always protested against the sclerotic condition in which they live, and it did
them honor; this culture because their total assimilation to men, it becomes
integrated into this sclerotic condition; thus, it demeans men once again. The
spirit productions in the style of the culture industry are no longer also
commodities, but they are full. This shift is so great that raises entirely new
phenomena. After all, the cultural industry is no longer obliged to aim
everywhere to cultural profit interests and sometimes have emancipated
themselves from the compulsion to sell the cultural commodities which, anyway,
should be absorbed "(Adorno, 1977, p. 289) .
The culture industry produces a standardization and
rationalization of cultural production while also conserves "forms of
individual production" (Adorno, 1977), or, according to Morin, produces a
"standardization-individualisation" (Morin, 2006). It is, however, a
pseudo individualist in which the advertising and handling a fundamental role
(Slater, 1978). This whole process reproduces the interests of the ruling
class. The culture industry produces a standardization and manipulation of
culture, reproducing the dynamics of any other capitalist industry, the pursuit
of profit, but also reproducing the ideas that serve to its own perpetuation
and legitimation and, by extension, the capitalist society as a whole.
This position has some questionable points, although it is
possible to agree with some of his theses. The first question has to perform
call into question the very term "cultural industry" and replace it
with capital communication. Here we highlight the reception view of the
production of "cultural industry" on the population. The
communicational capital really performs a one-dimensional communication,
one-sided. As Baudrillard puts, "TV is, by the very presence, social
control at home of each" (Baudrillard, 1978). The TV displays messages
produced by an elite of experts who are, like it or not, the service of the
ruling class. It is also true that their viewers do not send a message (or
counter-message) back. This is true for most oligopolistic media. The section
of letters in newspapers and magazines, applications and interviews on radio
and TV are very limited and marginalized (and are selected according to the
interests of who owns these media). Our disagreement is on two points
overlooked by the cultural industry of Adorno's conception (and others who encampam
and reproduce): the question of reception of the cultural industry and the
non-perception of its contradictions.
The issue of receipt allows us to realize that the process
of standardization and manipulation does not occur in virgin lands without any
obstacles. People on the communicational capital are not empty vessels. The
exploited classes do not assimilate the messages conveyed in the manner
intended by their issuing. There is the very interpretation of the message
assimilation placed under the consciousness of the recipient. For party
intellectual one "Communist" a novel that features a character "communist"
who abandons such a position appears to him as a dangerous and ideological
anti-communist propaganda (Numerian, 1990). For a worker such particularity of
the novel is not interested because the meaning of "communism" for it
is another, being off of its values and its interests. So if there was the
intention to produce an anti-communist propaganda, which is debatable, it has
very limited effects. The interpretation of each class (which also features
internal differences and subdivisions) of the received message is related to
his conscience and with the values that can only be understood based on the
analysis of their way of life. According to Anton Pannekoek,
"Among the workers and the bourgeoisie, a cultural
community can only be superficial and apparently sporadically. Workers can read
the same books of the bourgeoisie, the same classic and the same works of
natural history, this was not reflected any cultural community. Being totally
divergent fundamentals of his thought and his view of the world, workers read
these works something totally different that bourgeoisie "(Pannekoek,
1980, p. 105).
Pannekoek states that no national culture hangs in the air
like clouds and an expression of the material history of social class life. We
live in a class society and this brings the social classes, according to the
social division of labor, have different ways of life and therefore observe and
interpret reality differently. Thus, class consciousness and the
representations that are produced by social classes differ and, although they
also have elements in common, since the "ruling ideas are the ideas of the
ruling class", such differentiation interfere with the reception of
cultural goods and culture in general. Thus, does not hold the view that the
masses would be passive recipients of mass media. In this type of analysis does
not see any contradiction in the process of sending and receiving the message
and implanted the absolute rule of the bourgeoisie by the cultural industry. By
eliminating the contradictions also eliminates the possibility of change.
Another element that must be taken into consideration is the
existence of contradictions within the communicational capital. It performs two
types of advertising: the ideological and commercial (Sweezy, 1977). The first
reproduces the dominant ideology, both naturalized in art plan and fantasy
(novels, movies, novels, fiction, comic books, music, etc.), as giving a
certain interpretation of reality (newspapers, news, reports, etc.) based on a
selection of events, interviews, etc. turning it into everyday, easily digested
representations, and expressing the dominant values. This propaganda is carried
out by who has control of the oligopolistic media and is often intentional, but
not always.
Newscasts, newspapers, interviews, etc. representing a
selection made by those who have control of the oligopolistic media will be
re-interpreted for whom access to them, that is, there is a
"selection" of what was "selected". The same is true as
regards to art and fantasy, which also offers the possibility of a more open
interpretation, since it does not have to be compared with the reality or being
subject to thought "logical".
In addition to the interpretation of ideological propaganda
vary according to who performs, there is another contradiction that undermines
their effectiveness: the contradiction between propaganda and reality. An
example is the incentive that the ideological propaganda (and commercial) seeks
to provide to consumerism, to the struggle for social mobility and the lifting
status, which strengthens the dominant bourgeois ideology and integration in
capitalist society, but at the same time strengthens discontent with bourgeois
society (and counter-ideology) of those sectors of society unable to
materialize what has been encouraged by the oligopolistic media. The
contradiction between the ideological propaganda and reality is another element
alongside the cultural differences that prevent the absolute rule of the
bourgeoisie through the communicational capital.
On top of that, the communicational capital can not become
immune to the actions that are contrary to its goals. Despite the vigilance of
the owners of the oligopolistic media and bureaucrats to direct along with
pressure from advertisers, the very oligopolistic competition makes room for
artistic production, informational, cultural, etc. criticism. This is due to
the necessity of hearing, public or bandage, that is, the conservatives
themselves (owners, bureaucrats, advertisers) are often driven to take actions
contrary to its interests or objectives. However, one should not forget the
ambiguity of these critical messages and trying to "adapt" them to
the needs of capital made by its agents.
Commercial advertising is growing in importance with the
oligopoly of capitalist production that transfers the price competition for
space advertising, which is based not only on price but also in the promotion
of "quality", "convenience", "income", "
utility "," fashion ", etc. The oligopolistic capitalism that
emerged after World War II marks a whole commodification process of deepening
and bureaucratization of social relations and also marks the displacement of
capitalist investments in the sphere of means of consumption, because of its
need for expanded reproduction of the consumer market (Viana , 2003). It is in
this historical context that increases the competition for the consumer market
and the attempt of its expansion with the formation of manufactured needs
(Viana 2002). Advertising plays a key role in this context because it remains
true that "production creates consumption" (Marx, 1983) and that
"advertising is the lifeblood of business."
In addition to expressing the stage of oligopolistic
capitalism, the use of advertising competition aims to slow the development of
productive forces through spending on new type of competition that shifts
resources that would be applied in the accumulation of capital. However, the
growing increase in advertising expenditures is accompanied by rising prices
for products and elitism of consumers of certain goods released by advertising.
If advertising is an incentive to consumption, it is at the same time, an
impediment to consumption; it creates the will of consumption and at the same
time, its impossible for certain social groups, and thereby create new social
conflicts. However, in the imperialist bloc countries (US, Western Europe,
etc.), that due to technological advancement and exploitation of subordinates
capitalist countries, via more value transfer, provides a higher level of
consumption that reaches even classes exploited and oppressed social groups.
The capitalist state also seeks to control the dissemination
of culture via cultural industry. And this not only through the legislative
apparatus but also through their own media companies. Both seek to reach the
widest possible audience, although the emphasis of the private sector is the
maximization of profit and the state sector in political propaganda. The
private sector privileges, so public and state sector Your message:
"(...) The private system want, above all, to please
the consumer. He will do everything to recreate, enjoy, within the limits of
censorship. The state system wants to convince, educate: on the one hand, tends
to propagate an ideology that can annoy or irritate; On the other hand, it is
not driven by profit and may propose values of 'high culture' (scientific
lectures, classical music, classical works). The private system is alive,
because fun. Want to adapt their culture to the public. The state system is
affected, forced. The public wants to adapt to their culture "(Morin,
2006, p. 254).
One should not, however, forget that the state sector also
aims to profit, although secondarily and the private sector, when you want to
reach an elite audience, can also encourage so-called "high culture".
But what we have here is one of the main divisions within the communicational
capital, which is not a homogeneous whole. The pressure of certain sectors of
society and the existence of segments within the communication capital that
targets specific audiences (young people, intellectuals, etc.) open small
loopholes that give rise to new contradictions within it.
Therefore, the communicational capital is not just
stabilizer of capitalist society, but also player of its contradictions.
Oligopolists media are not "neutral" and serve the interests of
capital. Capital communication was produced by capitalist society and is
subject to the social division of labor typical of this society. The
bourgeoisie of the communication sector dominates not directly, but through
their employees, ie the bureaucracy. This is subject to not only direct
pressure from the owners of the oligopolistic media, but also by the pressure
of the specific needs of capitalist enterprises requiring productivity and profit
and puts these means in dependence of its advertisers. Added to this the
limited vision of "communication bureaucrats" generated by what Marx
called "idiocy of specialization" and we see that regardless of the
bourgeoisie and capital dynamic, bureaucracy reproduce the bureaucratic mode of
communication and the low level which is typical of these media.
9th THESIS:
A NEW WAY OF COMMUNICATION IS NECESSARY
From the analysis of the hegemony of authoritarian
communication and the predominance of one-dimensional communications conducted
by communicational capital, we need to understand the need for a new form of
communication. This means that the equal, horizontal communication, it is a
goal to be reached and its implementation must begin now. In this sense, communication
in social movements, the opposition groups to capitalism, the set of social
relations in which the goal is social transformation, shall not reproduce the
capitalist mode of communication. Beside this, in the process of class
struggle, the production of alternative technological means, founded on
egalitarian communication, should be driven. Furthermore, and in addition, you
can use the gaps of communication and media capital (oligopolistic or not)
technological communication exist to carry out the criticism of the mercantile
and bureaucratic world established by capitalism and propose a radically
different society.
10th THESIS:
FOR PROCESSING AND SOCIALIZATION MEDIA COMMUNICATION
TECHNOLOGY
The socialization of technological media is one of the first
steps to break the rule of capital. This process of socialization, however,
does not mean nationalization, which would mean no more than change the
bureaucrats who run such means, or to merge the old bureaucrats with new
bureaucrats. This is an authentic socialization, held from the population to be
taken by the self-management of technological media, to her cause several
changes and make such means be collective rather than private.
Thus, the socialization of technological means of
communication means, among other things, for processing. The large networks of
centralized and bureaucratically controlled TV are replaced by free
communication performed live and in different territorial points. In addition
to local programming, a city which has part of its program drawn up by the
neighborhood councils and partly by the spontaneous participation of the
residents, there are regional or national programming, as national borders
still exist, even if artificially due to clashes with the ruling class in other
countries, which is held in part by a regional council chosen among the
delegates of districts or communal councils, and partly by the relay between
programming drafted by several communal councils spread throughout the society.
Thus, the program becomes self-managed by the community and the technological
means become accessible to the population.
Beside this, new technological media should be created
(perhaps even to merge more vertical technological means, such as TV, with more
horizontal means such as the internet, seeking to turn the vertical to
horizontal) to allow the socialization process cultural, artistic and
informational production, as well as the technological means for its
realization.
Thus a new society requires new uses and new technological
media. The abolition of communicational capital, along with the abolition of
the state, implementing social self-management, creates the social conditions
for a new mode of communication, egalitarian and horizontal.
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