M e d I a S t u d I e s Marxist media theory Lecture 8 In Media studies ©2007.

M e d I a S t u d I e M e d I a S t u d I e ss

Marxist media theoryMarxist media theory

Lecture 8 Lecture 8

In Media studiesIn Media studies

©2007

M e d I a S t u d I e M e d I a S t u d I e ss Classic marxism

Base-structure and Superstructure Technological determinist: 'The windmill gives you

society with the feudal lord: the steam-mill, society with the industrial capitalist' ('The Poverty of Philosophy', 1847)

'the contents of the media and the meanings carried by their messages are... primarily determined by the economic base of the organizations in which they are produced' (Curran et al. 1982: 18)

The base/superstructure model as applied to the mass media is associated with a concern with the ownership and control of the media

the mass media functioned to produce 'false consciousness' in the working-classes

M e d I a S t u d I e M e d I a S t u d I e ss characteristics

Media as means of production Ideology Media as amplifiers The constitution of subject

M e d I a S t u d I e M e d I a S t u d I e ss Means of production

The mass media simply disseminate the ideas and world views of the ruling class, and deny or defuse alternative ideas

The mass media functioned to produce 'false consciousness' in the working-classes. This leads to an extreme stance whereby media products are seen as monolithic expressions of ruling class values, which ignores any diversity of values within the ruling class and within the media, and the possibility of oppositional readings by media audiences

M e d I a S t u d I e M e d I a S t u d I e ss ideology

Ideological positions are a function of class positions, and the dominant ideology in society is the ideology of its dominant class

ideology is 'false consciousness' 'ideology becomes the route through

which struggle is obliterated rather than the site of struggle' (Curran et al. 1982: 26).

M e d I a S t u d I e M e d I a S t u d I e ss amplifiers

Media institutions are regarded as being 'locked into the power structure, and consequently as acting largely in tandem with the dominant institutions in society.

The media thus reproduced the viewpoints of dominant institutions … as the central and "obvious" or "natural" perspective' (Curran et al. 1982: 21).

M e d I a S t u d I e M e d I a S t u d I e ssThe constitution of the subject

The historical dialectic involves a mutually interactive relationship between the subject (human agents) and the object (the conditions of their existence)

Individuals are 'constituted' as the bearers of positions through the effects of social relations (Lapsley & Westlake 1988: 7). This is referred to as 'the constitution of the subject'.

M e d I a S t u d I e M e d I a S t u d I e ss Marxist variant

Frankfurt School 1st generation Althusser Gramsci Stuart Hall (British Cultural Studies) Habermas (Frankfurt School 2nd

generation) Postmodernism (Baudrillard, Foucault, and

Derrida)

M e d I a S t u d I e M e d I a S t u d I e ss Frankfurt School

A.K.A Critical Theory, in media theory it is important for offering the first Marxist attempt to theorize about the media

Associated with the Institute for Social Research, founded in Frankfurt in 1923 but shifted in 1933 to New York

Adorno and Horkheimer posed a question about rationalisme and the emergence of NAZI in Germany (Dialectics of Enlightment)

The role of media in shaping mass consciousness by its mass production and promoting mass culture

Distinction between high culture and mass culture


Developed a critical and transdisciplinary approach to cultural and communications studies, combining critique of political economy of the media, analysis of texts, and audience reception studies of the social and ideological effects of mass culture and communications

Coined the term 'culture industries' to signify the process of the industrialization of mass-produced culture and the commercial imperatives which drove the system

M e d I a S t u d I e M e d I a S t u d I e ss Frankfurt school

The critical theorists analyzed all mass-mediated cultural artifacts within the context of industrial production, in which the commodities of the culture industries exhibited the same features as other products of mass production: commodification, standardization, and massification

The culture industries had the specific function, however, of providing ideological legitimation of the existing capitalist societies and of integrating individuals into the framework of the capitalist system


The means of... communication..., the irresistible output of the entertainment and information industry carry with them prescribed attitudes and habits, certain intellectual and emotional reactions which bind the consumers... to the producers and, through the latter to the whole [social system]. The products indoctrinate and manipulate; they promote a false consciousness which is immune against its falsehood... Thus emerges a pattern of one-dimensional thought and behavior. (Marcuse, cited in Bennett 1982: 43)

M e d I a S t u d I e M e d I a S t u d I e ss Louis Althusser

Neo-marxian and structuralist philosopher

Althusser rejected two kinds of Marxist essentialism: economism (economic determinism) and humanism (in which social developments were seen as expressive of a pre-given human nature)

M e d I a S t u d I e M e d I a S t u d I e ss Louis althusser

He saw ideology as itself a determining force shaping consciousness, embodied in the material signifying practices of 'ideological state apparatuses', and enjoying 'relative autonomy

Ideology, for Althusser 'represents the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence'

M e d I a S t u d I e M e d I a S t u d I e ss Louis althusser

In Althusserian theory mass media texts 'interpellate the subject' whereas many current media theorists argue that the the subject projects meaning onto the media texts.

However, Althusser is 'the central conduit through which developments in structuralism and semiotics have both entered into and lastingly altered Marxist approaches to the media'

M e d I a S t u d I e M e d I a S t u d I e ss Antonio gramsci

Gramsci used the term hegemony to denote the predominance of one social class over others

The domination not merely repressive and in political economy realm.

Involves willing and active consent from those who are subordinated by accept it as ‘common sense’ and ‘natural’

M e d I a S t u d I e M e d I a S t u d I e ss Antonio gramsci

There are intellectuals who engineering the consent. Organic Intellectuals and traditional intellectuals

'Consent must be constantly won and rewon, for people's material social experience constantly reminds them of the disadvantages of subordination and thus poses a threat to the dominant class... Hegemony... posits a constant contradiction between ideology and the social experience of the subordinate that makes this interface into an inevitable site of ideological struggle' (Fiske 1992: 291).

mass media in terms of an ideological 'site of struggle'

M e d I a S t u d I e M e d I a S t u d I e ss Cultural studies

The British students of culture paid a great deal of attention to the products of 'popular culture'

Cultural studies focuses on the actual message or discourse of communication and its implied reader positions

Richard Hoggart: The Uses of Literacy (1958) broadens the application of literary studies to take in newspapers, magazines, popular music and so on


Raymond Williams: his work benefited from his exposure to semiotics, Althusserian Marxism and Gramsci, which enabled him to knit together a study of everyday life which embraced history, politics and ideology.

Stuart Hall: serious evaluation of mass culture on the same terms as high culture.


The world we live in is a culturally constructed world

Relations of power and dominance are part of the construction of society, and are hence supported in mass mediated communication

As the mass media are institutions connected to the other institutions in society, they will be structured according to, and communicate the values of, the dominant forces and the dominant ideologies in the society.


Media reception is 'situated', part of people's everyday lives; people interpret messages in the context of and for the purposes of their immediate experience and personal ideologies and goals.

Society is not monolithic; it has many sub-cultures , and people have different orientations in different circumstances and at different times

The meanings of mass mediated communication has are controlled (at least in part) by the receivers of the communication; consequently the meanings that people make, and the reasons and contexts in which they make them, must be studied -- through reception and ethnographic studies


The balance of cultural power, however, remains with the dominant ideology and its expression through institutions (including the institutions of mass media) and through mass mediated communication

The research methodology of cultural studies is genuinely interdisciplinary and calls for a union of semiotic analysis, textual analysis, reception theory, ideological analysis, ethnography and political economy.


Kajian Media memutuskan diri dengan model ‘pengaruh langsung’ –yang menggunakan model stimulus-respon dengan nada behaviouris yang kental, isi media merupakan pemantik—kedalam sebuah kerangka kerja yang melukiskan lebih banyak pada apa yang dapat kita sebut secara luas sebagai peran ‘ideologis’ dalam media.

Kajian media ini menentang konsep teks media sebagai pembawa makna yang transparan –sebagaimana pesan dalam cara yang tunggal— dan memberikan perhatian yang lebih besar daripada kasus bentuk tradisional dari analisis isi pada strukturasi ideologis dan linguistik.


Kajian media menentang konsepsi tentang audiens yang pasif dan tidak terdiferensiasikan yang muncul dalam riset tradisional. Dan menggantikannya dengan konsepsi audiens yang lebih aktif, konsep ‘membaca’, dan relasi bagaimana pesan media di ‘encoded’ dan ‘decoding’ yang dilakukan oleh audiens.

Yang terakhir, pertanyaan tentang media dan ideologi dikembalikan pada agenda yang berkaitan dengan peran dimana media memainkan sirkulasi dan mengamankan definisi dan representasi ideologi dominan

M e d I a S t u d I e M e d I a S t u d I e ss Encoding-decoding

Meaning is encoded through frameworks of knowledge, and that these have a social dimension and a material dimension (that is, they are embedded in the economic and political processes of the society),

Meaning is what is made by the receiver, who decodes the message in the context of his or her own framework of knowledge. The distance in 'history' -- in terms of time, or in terms of different social or geographic (national, etc) placement, will have an impact on the similarities between the encoded and decoded meanings,


The various codes of all kinds through which meaning is constructed(from word meanings and connotations to the uses of genre to social and ideological implications) can vary from one reception site to another, and of course can differ from sender to 'receiver' (or, more properly, from encoder to decoder).


The mediated communication event as meaningful social

discourseENCODING1: communication codes

of all kinds 2: structures and codes of medium and of genre

DECODING1: communication codes

of all kinds 2: structures and codes of medium and of genre

Frameworks of Knowledge Frameworks of Knowledge

Social Realm

Social practice Concepts of social & personal nature

and relations Cultural norms

World-view

Social Realm

Social practice Concepts of social & personal nature

and relations Cultural norms

World-view

Material Practices

Relations of production

Technical infra-structure

Political/economic structures

Conditions of production

Material Practices

Relations of production

Technical infra-structure

Political/economic structures

Conditions of production

HISTORY


Hall outlines three major reading positions. The idea is that any text encodes an intended, or "preferred", meaning, but that the reader may not decode the message within the 'preferred' interpretive frame.

within the frame of the dominant code: decoding as the encoders would have it, or, within their interpretive frame;

adopting a negotiated position: the reader accepts some aspects of the dominant meaning, but rejects and alters others, to suit their understandings and goals;

reading from an oppositional point of view: reading subversively, against the dominant or preferred meanings.

M e d I a S t u d I e M e d I a S t u d I e ss ENCODING-DECODING

As a note, one can also imagine a rogue reading, in which the reader appropriates the message for purposes quite other than was intended;

and one can imagine differentiating between knowing readings, in which the audience member is aware of the position she is taking vis a vis the message,

and innocent reading, in which the audience member is not aware of her positionality.

M e d I a S t u d I e M e d I a S t u d I e ss To be continued…

Assignment for next week Habermas and Theory of Communicative

Action Baudrillard and hyperreality

M e d I a S t u d I e s Marxist media theory Lecture 8 In Media studies ©2007.

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