Missing Marx: The Place of Marx in Current Communication Research and the Place of Communication in Marx’s Work
Irfan Erdogan
PDF link
The control of thought and production, distribution and use of mental products has been one of the main concerns and praxis of the ruling forces throughout human history. As organized life has become complex with deepening inequalities, oppression and unjust distribution of power and wealth, the quantity and scope of the control of thought and behaviour has been expanded to every facet of life. In the 21st century, such control became a nightmarish issue of sustainability in such a way that the management of what, why and how to think and not to think, to feel and not to feel, to believe and not to believe, and to do or not to do was extended to every instance of the daily life of every individual at any age. From the first ancient empires to the demise of feudalism, the mental production, distribution and use were controlled by the theological and political power centres that owned not only the body and souls of the masses, but also the material riches. Then came the “freedom” associated with the capitalist mode of production: The absolute serf or semi-serf found himself/herself free from the yoke of owners/masters and outside and on the street with no means to produce his/her life; his/her freedom turned to be the freedom of owners from responsibilities of keeping a slave; his/her freedom became a new slavery called wage-slavery: He/she had no guarantee of food, clothing and shelter anymore. Those who were doing mental production in the interest of theological and political forces within and outside the church and castles were luckier because new and expanded opportunities, like steadily increasing number of schools and universities and mass media, were emerging outside the traditional centres of mental production. Two basic centres of knowledge production proliferated and gained prominence:
There are many functionalist studies
supporting the relationship between universities and industrial structures, we
can however see an increasing number of critical analyses on the same subject too (e.g.
Schiller 1974; Gans 1975; Gorz 1980; Berube 1996; Martin 1998; Chouliaraki and
Fairclough 1999; Cerwonka 2009; Domenech 2009).
All these explanations indicate the existence of the control of mental production by means of numerous mechanisms that integrate private interests with the dominant interests. Furthermore, the control covers every sphere of life: It is actualized not only through the professional practices and professional ideologies, but also through the user choices that are influenced by the character of production, distribution and access. These historically structured mode of relations fall within Marx’s theoretical explanation:
“The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas: i.e., the class which is the ruling material force of society is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expressions of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas; hence of the relationships which make the one class the ruling one, therefore the ideas of its dominance” (Marx and Engels,1969, 39).
By using words like “generally
speaking,” “ruling” and “domination”, Marx clearly excludes the one way causal
relationship which eliminates the possibility of individual and class struggle
via total control. If there was a one way determination and thus total control
over minds and behaviour of people, not only the idea of struggle would be
invalid but also revolutionary social change would be impossible. If the capitalist class was not
interested in controlling the means and content of mental production, there
would e.g. be no laws restricting the freedom of thought and expression, the
journalists and intellectuals in Turkey would not be in jail waiting for trial
more than 4 years, and intellectuals throughout the world would not be silent
and apathetic in the face of such a “post-modern civil dictatorship”; the media
would not be so acquiescent about oppressive measures and injustices all over
the world; the large masses would not be quiet and accommodating; the journalists,
intellectuals and academicians would not be talking about the existence of
“participatory democracy” despite the obvious fact that they cannot have even a
slight influence on the determination of their own salaries; and they would not
align themselves with the ruling part of society. There would be no industries
like advertising and public relations. Advertisers, agencies like CIA and
foundations like Rockefeller and Ford would not spend billions of dollars for
mind management.
Derived
from the theoretical reasoning and statements above, it is expected that
domination manifests itself in the nature of production, dissemination and use
of mental products. In terms of journal articles, the formation and
sustainability of domination includes heavy emphasis on certain theoretical
orientations and issues, ample support of functional alternatives, and the elimination,
marginalization or distortion of the real alternatives that Marx’s approach poses.
My study points out that the control of communication via the control of
production and dissemination entails not a total control of the minds of
people, but the existence of domination and struggle. All the ideas in a
society are not and cannot be the ideas of the ruling class. Furthermore, every
person carries dominant, conflicting or oppositional ideas to varying degrees.
Not every bit of a dominant or oppositional idea can be right or wrong. The
main point here is the nature of the connection of ideas to domination and
struggle. It is argued that (1) the dominant theoretical and topic orientations
of articles in the journals studied are functional for the capitalist mode of
production, (2) Marx’s theory and method and Marxist issues are mostly excluded
from the communication field, (3) most alternatives are not alternatives to the
interests of capitalism, but controlled and functional alternatives which are
set against one another and especially against Marx and Marxism, and (4) Marx’s
thinking is represented in the form of false or forged assertions or downgraded
by claiming that Marx did not say anything or said very little about
communication[1].
There
are three basic aims of the article. The first one is to test the assumption
that there are certain dominant theoretical and topic orientations in academic
articles in Media and Communication Studies despite the quantitative multitude.
The existence of such orientations only means that there is a dominant intersubjectivity
feeding certain material and immaterial interests: Even if everybody says that
the earth is flat, it does not make the earth flat, but such a claim works only
as functional justification.
The
second aim is to demonstrate that Marx and issues of the Marxist approach are
mostly excluded from Media and Communication studies, and that Marx is
invalidated fully or partially, evaluated negatively or criticized for various
reasons if he is mentioned in an article. The exclusion or marginalization of
Marx in the articles does not mean that Marx’s theoretical approach is false or
has no value or merit; rather, it means that Marx’s approach has thus far been
successfully ignored and dismissed with the help of false claims. Such a marginalization
and dismissal also indicates and proves the correctness of Marx’s analysis of
the general character of the ruling ideas. Therefore, the point is not that
Marx is wrong, the point is rather that Marx and Marxist issues do not fit the
structures of material and immaterial interests, relations and mindsets. They
rather threaten the dominant practices. This reminds us of the motto of New
York Times: "All the news that's fit to print".
The
third aim is to show that the exclusion of Marx entails false justifications
like claiming that Marx did not say anything about communication.
The structure of the article is as follow:
The first part of the article examines (a) the statistical foundations of the studied
topic, and (b) the presence of Marx and Marxism in the analysed articles
published in communication journals that are cited in the Social Sciences
Citation Index.
The second part of the article presents and
discusses Marx’s ideas on communication in order to demonstrate that Marx,
contrary to prevailing assertions, said a lot about communication.
I used the phrase “missing Marx” in the
title in order to indicate that (1) Marx is missing in articles in the
“reputable” and the widely circulated journals and that (2) the communication
field is missing (needs) Marx, because of (a) the value of his approach, (b) the
prevailing domination of certain industry-oriented approaches that ignore or
distort significant social and academic issues, (c) the increasing tendency of the
usage of “supermarket books” by those who have limited mental comprehension capacities
or are simply too lazy to spend time to read anything that forces him/her to
think, and (d) the growing influence of popular gurus in communication schools.
Unfortunately, “academic fads come and
go, the academy becomes complicit in such genuflection, and new gurus emerge
and fade” (Tomaselli and Shepperson 2010, 52), but their vestiges or bad
copies remain. Being mystified by “body language” and “Neuro Linguistic Programming”,
and “the unproblematic adoption of decontextualised
ahistorical post-structuralist, post-disciplinary” approaches are
increasingly encroaching the communication field.
Decent and honourable
scholars, like Herbert Schiller, Dallas Smythe, Ariel Dorfman, George Murdock, Peter
Golding, Nicholas Garnham and Armand Mattelart in the late 1960s and the following
decades, and Dan Schiller, Vincent Mosco, McChesney, Christian Fuchs, Stuart
Ewen, Lee Artz, Dyer-Witheford, Richard Maxwell and the like in recent years, have
shown that Marx/Marxism is not dead and closely concerned with communication.
The production and distribution of Marx’s
writings and Marxist texts are also part of the struggle for a better world.
Regarding Marx’s interest in communication, Fetscher (1969) and Padover (1974)
published a collection of Marx’s writings on the Freedom of the Press and
Censorship. The International Mass Media Research Centre’s two books on
Communication and Class Struggle, and a book about the Marx’s writings on the
means of communication are excellent pieces of work. It is not a coincidence that
it is difficult to find these books in bookstores and libraries, but only in
the personal libraries of people like me.
The present study bases its theoretical
framework solely on Marx, thus it is not a classical Marxist, orthodox Marxist,
neo-Marxist, autonomous Marxist, post-Marxist or any kind of Marxist study. It
tries to clarify the dominant tradition and conscious marginalization of Marx
and Marxist oriented studies in the production of knowledge in the leading
journals of communication by employing an empirical design. It discusses Marx’s
approach on communication by presenting his writings that are associated with
any aspect and/or type of communication. This presentation will also show the
importance of Marx and his approach in the communication field, and will also demonstrate
the invalidity, absurdity and ludicrousness of the ideological and propagandist
nature of contemporary claims like the end of ideology-hypothesis, the meaninglessness
of ideology, or that Marx’s analysis was based on economic reductionism,
monolithic relations between material conditions of production and mental
conditions, the primacy of superstructure or basis, etc.
Marx, as we will see in the following
paragraphs, lucidly points out that humans produce their own material and
mental life, and they do so in a historical society organized by them. They
produce their life conditions by reflecting their thoughts on material
conditions and ideas, feelings, values and beliefs. They sustain or change their
material and/or immaterial conditions by acting upon them. This theoretical
reasoning brings along many conclusions. Some of the conclusions pertinent to
the present study are:
(1) The claims about Marxist reflectivity
are false explanations, because we could never establish, develop and change
life, make history and engage in the struggle for liberation if our thoughts
were mere reflections of our material life. Marx talks about the dominant mode
of production and relations and reminds us about the lasting existence of
remnants of the old material and especially immaterial relations. One of the
best examples is that the capitalists who rule the world today support the
governments of theological political parties that come to power exploiting the
religious and irrational beliefs of people. Marx argues: “the individuals composing the ruling class [...] among
other things rule also as thinkers, as producers of ideas, and regulate the
production and distribution of the ideas of their age: thus their ideas are the
ruling ideas of the epoch” (Marx 1969, 39). [We go astray] "if [...] we detach
the ideas of the ruling class from the ruling class itself and attribute to
them an independent existence, if we confine ourselves to saying that in a
particular age these or those ideas were dominant, without paying attention to
the conditions of production and the producers of these ideas, and if we thus
ignore the individuals and the world conditions which are the source of these
ideas" (1969, 40).
(2) The ideas of economic
determinism, reductionism or technological determinism are not immanent in
Marx’s works. For instance, a statement like “the traditional
Marxist approach postulates a mechanical relation between economic structure
and socio-cultural superstructure” (Grossberg, 1997, 22)
is
nonsense and a classic cold-war ideological propaganda for mind management
geared toward unaware readers, students and academicians. It knowingly or
unknowingly distorts the basic theoretical structure of Marxism. Marx commented
that his work merely attempted to describe the path that Western capitalism
developed from feudalism, and that one should not “transform
his historical sketch of the development of Western European capitalism into
historical-philosophical theory of universal development predetermined by fate
for all nations, whatever their historic circumstances in which they find
themselves may be. [… that view] does me at the same time too much honour and
too much insult’ (Padover 1979, 321). Engels provided a clear explanation for the
same issue in a letter to Bloch in 1890:
“According to the materialist conception of
history, the ultimate determining element in history is the production and
reproduction of real life. More than this neither Marx nor I have ever
asserted. Hence if somebody twists this into saying that the economic element
is the only determining one, he transforms that proposition into a meaningless,
abstract, senseless phrase. The economic situation is the basis, but the
various elements of the superstructure – political forms of the class struggle
and its results, to wit: constitutions established by the victorious class
after a successful battle, etc., juridical forms, and even the reflexes of all
these actual struggles in the brains of the participants, political, juristic,
philosophical theories, religious views and their further development into
systems of dogmas – also exercise their influence upon the course of the
historical struggles and in many cases preponderate in determining their form.
There is an interaction of all these elements, in which, amid all the endless
host of accidents (that is, of things and events whose inner interconnection is
so remote or so impossible of proof that we can regard it as non-existent, as
negligible) the economic movement finally asserts itself as necessary.
Otherwise the application of the theory to any period of history would be
easier than the solution of a simple equation of the first degree” (Marx and
Engels 1962, 488).
(3) Technological determinism is an
immanent element of the approaches of popularized stars like Daniel Bell,
Marshall McLuhan and new popular gurus, who claim that the Internet brings about
an “information and knowledge society” and “democratization”. Contrary to the
currently popular technological determinist idea establishing a causal
connection between the Internet and the so-called information and knowledge
society, a society becomes a knowledge society (a) only if the Internet
provides “information and knowledge” which is functional to general interests and
goes beyond controlling the interests, minds and behaviours of the millions via
capturing and imprisoning them in front of a monitor and beyond marketing
material and mental end-products of capitalist enterprises and institutions,
and (b) only if people use the Internet to make sound decisions on meeting
their daily rational needs. Democratization requires not only participation in
public discussions, but also, most importantly, affecting the political and
economical decision making processes.
In short, as scholars like Herbert Schiller, Dan Schiller, Christian Fuchs,
Vincent Mosco, Peter Golding, Nicholas Garnham and Dyer-Witheford vividly
demonstrate, the Internet represents a new sphere and an extension of ongoing
domination and struggle. In any case, the so-called information society,
knowledge society or service society is still a capitalist society and the
claim of “democratization” via the Internet is the acknowledgement that
capitalist society is not a democratic society and was waiting for the Internet
to rescue capitalism from such burden.
(4) Marx neither ignores nor downgrades
ideology in his explanations in The
German Ideology and other writings and does not assign a determining or
dependent position to it.
(5) Claims like the ones that we have
reached an “end of ideology” and “of grand narratives/theories” are ideological
and function as tools for justifying various policies, including the “war
against terror” ideology that helps to evade and ignore the ongoing terrorism
in the workplace and of industrial policies. Ideology primarily means two
things: (a) the structure of ideas/thoughts and (b) the study of ideas (just as
sociology is the study of the “social”). “No ideology” or the “end of ideology”
simply means “no idea”, “no thought”, “end of thinking”, or “end of ideas”. But
no human being and organized human life could exist, if there were no
idea/thinking/thought and structure(s) of ideas. “The end of ideology” (or the
end of history or the claim of discontinuity that postmodernism is not a
continuation of modernism) is the ideology of the global capitalism that institutes
functional ignorance as knowledge. The justifications by establishing connections
with grand theories, disintegration of the Soviet System, modernist era or any
other things are simply forged factoids.
The Method of Study
(...)
Determining Data and Information Sources
(...)
Population, Sample, Data Collection and Analysis
(...)
Findings and Evaluations
(...)
The Concept of Communication:
What is Communication for Marx?
We were educated in
such a way that we have to know the definition, like the definition of
communication. We cannot define communication with a single sentence.
Communication (even an apple) cannot be correctly defined by a single or a few
common properties. Furthermore, the answer to the question of what
communication is does not come in five choices and one right answer. A scientific definition requires a
kind of detailed explanation that includes properties/indicators of
communication in general and a historically specific context so that we can
learn what it is, and also provides exclusionary explanations so that we can
learn what it is not. There are many definitions of communication, but
none of them explains what communication is, because they are definitions focusing
on the mechanics/processes of encoding and decoding, the observable interactions
like sending and receiving messages, exchanging ideas, elements, functions,
roles, goals or structures. Nobody communicates in order to send or receive a
message or to create, construct, consume or deconstruct meanings. Communicative action, message,
writing, saying something, reading a book or watching television do not constitute
communication. Verbal expressions or any kind of mental or relational
manifestations are also not “communication”.
Marx does not define communication;
however, we find very important explanations about communication in his
writings. The following itemized presentation of Marx’s understanding of
communication invalidates (1) the claims that Marx did not deal with
communication, (2) the assessment that Marx only talked about means of
communication and (3) the evaluations that Marx reduced communication to
“transportation”.
I extracted phrases or sentences from
Marx’s writings and provided brief explanations:
·
“Cheap and quick communications” (Marx 1846): Existence of two
indicators of two groups of the qualitative nature of communication.
·
“Is the Iliad possible at all when the printing press and even printing
machines exist? Is it not inevitable that with the emergence of the
press bar the singing and the telling and the muse cease, that is the
conditions necessary for epic poetry disappear?” (Marx 1857a): historically
accumulated and determined nature of communication and production of
communication.
·
“Conditions of Production and Communication; Political Forms and
Forms of Cognition in Relation to the Conditions of Production and
Communication” (Marx 1857a): These are the titles
in the main text. These titles indicate that Marx is interested in conditions
of communication, and the relationship of communication to political structures
and cognition.
·
“The relations between productive power and the conditions of communication”
(Marx 1857a): This self-exploratory phrase indicates the importance of the conditions
of communication in influencing the productive power.
·
“there are certain independent branches of industry in which the product
of the productive process is not a new material product, is not a commodity.
Among these only the communications industry, whether engaged in transportation
proper, of goods and passengers, or in the mere transmission of communications,
letters, telegrams, etc., is economically important” (Marx 1885, chapter 1,
17): Importance of the communication industry.
·
“interfering with the British
communications with Kurnaul and Meerut” (Marx 1857): Control of communication.
·
“English line of communication between Agra and Delhi” (Marx 1857):
Communication networks in the colonies.
·
“The Morning Chronicle, in its fourth edition,
communicated a telegraphic despatch” (Marx 1853):
Communicating by sending a dispatch/content using the telegraph.
·
“The limited commerce and the scanty communication between the
individual towns” (Marx and Engels, 1969 46):
Quantitative nature of Communication and its outcome.
·
“The possibility of commercial communications transcending the
immediate neighbourhood, a possibility, the realisation of which depended on
the existing means of communication” (Marx and
Engels 1969, 47): Acknowledging the existence of various forms of communication,
like commercial communications; implying that communication is done via means
of communication; emphasizing the determining role of means of communication.
·
“[...] public word in all its forms
– in spoken form, in written form, and in printed
form, print not yet censored as well as
that already censored, [...] local press. (Marx 1843g): Various forms of communication.
·
“Established means of communication”
(Marx and Engels 1969, 56): Role of established means of communication.
·
“Influence of the means of communication” (Marx 1857a): influence/outcome of communication.
·
“Louis Napoleon has
communicated a similar message to his Senate and Corps Législatif”. (1854):
Communicating a message.
·
“Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the
hands of the State” (Marx 1848a): Monopoly in
communication; political economy of communication.
·
“This market has given an
immense development to commerce, to navigation, to communication by land” (Marx
1848a): Development of communication and market influence on it.
·
“The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of
production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all,
even the most barbarian, nations into civilisation” (Marx 1848a): Role of development of the means of communication.
·
“This union is helped on by the improved means of communication that
are created by modern industry” (Marx 1848a): Role
of communication in society.
·
“An organised system of machines, to which motion is communicated by
the transmitting mechanism from a central automaton” (Marx 1867, chapter 15, 3): Technology, organizational
communication; machine-to-machine communication.
·
“The means of communication and transport were so utterly inadequate
to the productive requirements of the manufacturing period” (Marx 1867): Influence of the condition of communication in
production.
·
“The means of communication and transport became gradually adapted to
the modes of production of mechanical industry” (Marx 1867): Political
economy of communication; industrial relations, technological control.
·
“The improved means of transport and communication furnish the
weapons for conquering foreign markets” (Marx
1867): Role of communication in colonisation; international political economy
of communication; war communication.
·
“The development of ocean navigation and of the means of
communication generally, has swept away the technical basis on which season-work was really
supported” (Marx 1867): Role of communication in
industrial development and relations, work force and trade.
·
“At a given stage of development of technology and of the means of
communication, the discovery of new territories containing gold or silver plays
an important role” (Marx 1859): Role of
communication in development, colonization.
·
“It is clear that the progress of social production in general has,
on the one hand, the effect of evening out differences arising from location as
a cause of ground-rent, by creating local markets and improving locations by
establishing communication and transportation facilities” (Marx 1863-1883): Role of communication facilities; political
economy of communication.
·
“Continental politicians, who imagine that in the London press they
possess a thermometer for the temper of the English people, inevitably draw
false conclusions at the present moment” (Marx
1861): In this article, Marx focuses on political communication; the relationship
among media, politicians and people; the role of the press in war; close
material relations between top media professionals and ruling forces; the control of the press by politicians
and corporate structures; the ownership of the press; interests that the London
press upholds.
The short examples
above also indicate that what Marx says in these short phrases is a lot more
meaningful than, for instance, (a) millions of “effect analyses” that provide
nothing more than distributional and relational information to serve the interests of marketing
and/or political control and (b) some reception analyses that do talk about the
nature of reception just like active audience theorists without using functionalist
terminology and without analyzing receptors/individuals.
Marx said a lot more.
Location and Function/Role of
Communication in Society and Social Development
Marx locates communication in every moment of the material and immaterial production of life. The explanations that Marx provides on ideas, the press, writing, means and roles of communication clearly indicate that communication for Marx is an essential factor for the existence of the societal production of life (that includes distribution, circulation and consumption). In addition to the ideas that are presented in the other sections of this article, the following explanation of Marx implies not only the relational aspect and role of communication, but also the necessity of communication in every sphere of social life:
“so soon
as it (linen) comes into communication with another commodity, the coat. Only
it betrays its thoughts in that language with which alone it is familiar, the
language of commodities. In order to tell us that its own value is created by labour
in its abstract character of human labour, it says that the coat, in so far as
it is worth as much as the linen, and therefore is value, consists of the same labour
as the linen. In order to inform us that its sublime reality as value is not
the same as its buckram body, it says that value has the appearance of a coat,
and consequently that so far as the linen is value, it and the coat are as like
as two peas. We may here remark, that the language of commodities has, besides
Hebrew, many other more or less correct dialects. […] the equating of commodity B to
commodity A, is commodity A's own mode of expressing its value.” (Marx 1867,
chapter 1, 11) “The price […] of
commodities is, […], a purely
ideal or mental form. Although invisible, the value of iron, linen and corn has
actual existence in these very articles: it is ideally made perceptible by
their equality with gold, a relation that, so to say, exists only in their own
heads. Their owner must, therefore, lend them his tongue, or hang a ticket on
them, before their prices can be communicated to the outside world” (Marx 1867,
chapter 3, 1).
Marx presents his ideas about the role of communication in writings ranging from the role of the press in society and the role of the means of communication in social change. His newspaper articles are good examples of political communication that are not reduced down to political campaigns, parliamentary processes and voter attitudes and preferences. He evaluated every important political event all over the world and wrote about the role of communication in the press, politics and public tendencies.
For Marx, technology is not a collection of
tools, but technology means society at a certain level of development. Then,
means of communication are integral parts of the maintenance and change, and,
e.g., played a crucial role in the transition from the feudal mode of
production to the capitalist mode, and also within the capitalist mode. Means
of communication are employed and used in order to bolster the meaning, limits
and potentialities of possible social relations and change.
Marx
does not consider means of communication as a mere tool with a specific
function: “A house can serve for production as well as
for consumption; likewise all vehicles, a ship and a wagon, for pleasure
outings as well as a means of transport; a street as a means of communication
for production proper, as well as for taking walks” (Marx 1859a).
Marx
provided explanations on communication and the relationship of the means of
communication with factors that include every aspect of social production,
distribution and consumption, maintenance and control of the social formation.
His explanations are not limited within the circulation or as merely a certain
technological means. Furthermore, it is a grave mistake to expect that Marx
would locate communication at the centre of production of life and base his
analyses on it or give primacy to the development of communication technology
in society and social change.
Development of the Means of Communication and Class Domination
“all the progress of civilization, or in other words every increase
in the powers of social production, if you like, in the productive powers of labour
itself – such as results from science, inventions, division and combination of labour,
improved means of communication, creation of the world market, machinery etc. –
enriches not the worker but rather capital; hence it only magnifies again the
power dominating over labour; increases only the productive power of capital” (Marx 1857d, 8).
Communication Facilities and the Magnitude of Productive Supply
Stating that “a
definite quantity of potential productive capital must be available in some
quantities for the purpose of entering by and by into the productive process”,
Marx establishes causal relations that involve communication facilities: “the magnitude of this productive supply
depends on the greater or lesser difficulties of its renewal, the relative
nearness of markets of supply, the development of transportation and
communication facilities” (Marx 1885, chapter 13, 5).
Development of the Means of communication and the Cost of Commodity
Transportation
“The capitalist mode of production reduces
the costs of transportation of the individual commodity by the development of
the means of transportation and communication, as well as by concentration –
increasing scale – of transportation” (Marx 1885, chapter 6, 13).
Communication Facilities and the Speed/Time among Processes
in Order to Ensure the Continuity of Production
Marx explains this relationship by the example of coal supply: “the rapidity with which the product of one process may be transferred as means of production to another process depends on the development of the transport and communication facilities” (Marx 1885, chapter 6, 8).
Developed means of Communication and the Density and the Condition
of the Division of Labour in Society
“A relatively thinly populated country, with
well-developed means of communication, has a denser population than a more
numerously populated country, with badly-developed means of communication; and
in this sense the Northern States of the American Union, for instance, are more
thickly populated than India. […] In consequence of the great demand for cotton
after 1861, the production of cotton, in some thickly populated districts of
India, was extended at the expense of rice cultivation. In consequence there
arose local famines, the defective means of communication not permitting the
failure of rice in one district to be compensated by importation from another”
(Marx 1867, chapter 14, 9).
Development of the Means of Communication and Season-Work
“The
development of ocean navigation and of the means of communication generally,
has swept away the technical basis on which season-work was really supported”
(Marx 1867, chapter 15, 30).
Communication and Market Control
“The cheapness of
the articles produced by machinery, and the improved means of transport and
communication furnish the weapons for conquering foreign markets” (Marx 1867,
chapter 15, 22).
Communication and the Time of Commodity Circulation and Change
in Locations of Production
Marx explains the role of means of communication in the reduction of commodity circulation time, the growth of social wealth, social relations and change such as the deterioration of old and the rise of new centres of production:
“whereas on the one hand the improvement of the means of transportation and communication brought about by the progress of capitalist production reduces the time of circulation of particular quantities of commodities, the same progress and the opportunities created by the development of transport and communication facilities make it imperative, conversely, to work for ever more remote markets, in a word – for the world-market. The mass of commodities in transit for distant places grows enormously, and with it therefore grows, both absolutely and relatively, that part of social capital that remains continually for long periods in the stage of commodity-capital, within the time of circulation. There is a simultaneous growth of that portion of social wealth which, instead of serving as direct means of production, is invested in means of transportation and communication and in the fixed and circulating capital required for their operation” (Marx 1885, chapter 14, 2).
“the improvement of the means of communication and transportation cuts down absolutely
the wandering period of the commodities but does not eliminate the relative
difference in the time of circulation of different commodity-capitals arising
from their peregrinations, nor that of different portions of the same
commodity-capital which migrate to different markets. For instance the improved
sailing vessels and steamships, which shorten travelling, do so equally for
near and distant ports. The relative difference remains, although often
diminished. But the relative difference may be shifted about by the development
of the means of transportation and communication in a way that does not
correspond to the geographical distances. For instance a railway which leads
from a place of production to an inland centre of population may relatively or
absolutely lengthen the distance to a nearer inland point not connected by
rail, as compared to the one which geographically is more remote. In the same
way the same circumstances may alter the relative distance of places of
production from the larger markets, which explains the deterioration of old and
the rise of new centres of production because of changes in communication and
transportation facilities. (To this must be added the circumstances that long
hauls are relatively cheaper than short ones.) Moreover with the development of
transport facilities not only is the velocity of movement in space accelerated
and thereby the geographic distance shortened in terms of time. Not only is
there a development of the mass of communication facilities so that for
instance many vessels sail simultaneously for the same port, or several trains
travel simultaneously on different railways between the same two points, but
freight vessels may clear on consecutive days of the same week from Liverpool
for New York, or goods trains may start at different hours of the same day from
Manchester to London” (Marx 1885, chapter 14, 1).
Production of Life: Material Production and the
Production of Ideas
The Production of Material
Life
The nature of and change in the material production of anything,
including material means of communication depends on the historical mode of
production at a certain time and place. The study of the production of
communication primarily includes positioning and analyzing the organized
activities within the local, national and international modes, relations and
conditions of general production, and the investigation of the history and
development of media industries and prevailing practices and conditions of
production, distribution and consumption.
For instance, studying the praxis of media production and human conditions as end-products of dominant practices, Marx gives us a striking example in the English letter-press printing trade:
“There existed formerly a system, corresponding to that in the old manufactures and handicrafts, of advancing the apprentices from easy to more and more difficult work. They went through a course of teaching till they were finished printers. To be able to read and write was for every one of them a requirement of their trade. All this was changed by the printing machine. It employs two sorts of labourers, one grown up, renters, the other, boys mostly from 11 to 17 years of age whose sole business is either to spread the sheets of paper under the machine, or to take from it the printed sheets. They perform this weary task, in London especially, for 14, 15, and 16 hours at a stretch, during several days in the week, and frequently for 36 hours, with only 2 hours' rest for meals and sleep. A great part of them cannot read, and they are, as a rule, utter savages and very extraordinary creatures. [...] As soon as they get too old for such child's work, that is about 17 at the latest, they are discharged from the printing establishments” (Marx 1867, chapter 15, 31).
Concerning the relationship between the revolution in the mode of production and the conditions of the means of communication, Marx points out the following connection:
“The revolution in the modes of production of industry and agriculture made necessary a revolution in the general conditions of the social process of production, i.e., in the means of communication and of transport. In a society whose pivot, to use an expression of Fourier, was agriculture on a small scale, with its subsidiary domestic industries, and the urban handicrafts, the means of communication and transport were so utterly inadequate to the productive requirements of the manufacturing period, with its extended division of social labour, its concentration of the instruments of labour, and of the workmen, and its colonial markets, that they became in fact revolutionized. In the same way the means of communication and transport handed down from the manufacturing period soon became unbearable trammels on modern industry, with its feverish haste of production, its enormous extent, its constant flinging of capital and labour from one sphere of production into another, and its newly-created connections with the markets of the whole world. Hence, apart from the radical changes introduced in the construction of sailing vessels, the means of communication and transport became gradually adapted to the modes of production of mechanical industry, by the creation of a system of river steamers, railways, ocean steamers, and telegraphs. But the huge masses of iron that had now to be forged, to be welded, to be cut, to be bored, and to be shaped, demanded, on their part, cyclopean machines, for the construction of which the methods of the manufacturing period were utterly inadequate” (Marx 1967, chapter 15, 4).
The Production of Ideas
According to Marx, the production (and distribution and use) of ideas
should be free from any repressive measures. Marx does not consider material
production and the production of ideas as two independent spheres. For him, for
instance, newspaper production is a business that produces a material thing
called the newspaper and sells it; but at the same time, newspaper production
is a production of ideas on societal issues. For Marx, ideas are produced and
dependent on the conditions of life:
“Men are the producers of their conceptions, ideas, etc. – real, active men, as they are conditioned by a definite development of their productive forces and of the intercourse corresponding to these, up to its furthest forms. Consciousness can never be anything else than conscious existence, and the existence of men is their actual life-process” (Marx and Engels 1969, 15).
“Life is not determined by consciousness, but
consciousness by life. In the first method of approach the starting-point is
consciousness taken as the living individual; in the second method, which
conforms to real life, it is the real living individuals themselves, and
consciousness is considered solely as their consciousness” (Marx and Engels 1969, 15) .
Marx on Mass Communication
Marx wrote about
every aspect of the press especially in his newspaper articles and personal
letters. His interest in media continued until his death. The press was one of
the substantial means of political struggle for him as well as the means of
capitalist domination.
Marx can be considered a revolutionary
political journalist who had the workers’ emancipation in mind. Some of his
articles in newspapers and letters to newspaper editors show his interest in
mass communication and his understanding of communication, public opinion,
public communication, press, freedom, freedom of the press, the nature of the
relationship between newspapers and the governing power structure (censorship,
professional participation in and justification of censorship, and struggle
against censorship and participating journals).
His writings in the early 1840s are philosophical and journalistic pieces.
They demonstrate Marx’s interest in freedom of communication and the use
of the press for promoting the ideas of freedom and struggle against
censorship, injustice, political oppression, governmental and business
corruption. He searched for truth, focused on the real conditions of the
social, economic, and political environment and defended the work of
journalists and the mission of the press against the pressures coming from the
authorities. In his writings in the early 1840s, Marx defended freedom of
thought and press and participated in the advancement of the bourgeois liberal
revolution against the feudal structures and practices. However, he, after the
second half of 1840s, considered press freedom as an emancipatory struggle of
the working class and had no positive opinion about the law, press law and the
bourgeois democratic parliamentary system. He was involved in the communist
movement that struggled for democracy and freedom of the working class. For
instance, the last issue of the Neue Rheinische
Zeitung was printed entirely in red and contained an editorial notice,
thanking the workers of Köln for their participation. The editorial ended with
the slogan: “emancipation of the working class”. His
articles in 1843 were mostly on important current issues, attitudes of other
newspapers and government restrictions and sanctions. In 1848 and 1849, he was
highly critical of German papers. After moving to England in 1849, he started working as London correspondent of the New York Daily Tribune between 1852-1862. He wrote mostly on
politics, war, international relations and government policies.
Marx considered the press as the mythmaking machine and his evaluation holds true more than ever for all the dominant media in the world today:
“Up till now it has been thought that the emergence of the Christian
myths during the Roman Empire was possible only because printing had not yet
been invented. Precisely the contrary. The daily press and the telegraph, which
in a moment spreads its inventions over the whole earth, fabricate more myths
in one day (and the bourgeois cattle believe and propagate them still further),
than could have previously been produced in a century” (Marx 1871).
The Structure of the Media
Marx does not have any detailed analysis of the media structure, however his articles (e.g., Marx 1861a, 1861b) show how he approaches media ownership, politics and media practices: He goes beyond a simple explanation of ownership. He establishes multiple connections among material interests, the nature of media production and content, and explains the meaning and outcomes of these multiple relational links. He provides information about ownership, explicates the relationship between ownership and politics, relationship between top press professionals and politicians and business interests, connects them with professional practices geared toward propagating and buttressing private and political interests, and clarifies the public’s place in it. Here are few instructive excerpts (all from Marx, 1861):
“Continental politicians, who imagine that
in the London press they possess a thermometer for the temper of the English
people, inevitably draw false conclusions at the present moment. With the first
news of the Trent case the English national pride flared up and the call for
war with the United States resounded from almost all sections of society. [...]
Hence, in the beginning, the peaceful
and moderate tone of the London press in contrast to the warlike impatience of
the people. So soon, however, as the Crown lawyers [...] had worked out a
technical pretext for a quarrel with the United States, the relationship
between the people and the press turned into its opposite. The war fever
increased in the press in the same measure as the war fever abated in the
people. [...]
But now, consider the London press! At its
head stands The Times, whose leading editor, Bob Lowe, [...] is a subordinate member of the Cabinet, a kind
of minister for education, and a mere creature of Palmerston. [...] A principal
editor of Punch was accommodated by Palmerston with a seat on the Board of
Health and an annual salary of a thousand pounds sterling. [...]
The Morning Post is in part Palmerston’s
private property. Another part of this singular institution is sold to the
French Embassy. The rest belongs to the haute volée and supplies the most
precise reports for court flunkeys and ladies’ tailors. [...]
The Morning Advertiser is the joint property
of the “licensed victuallers”, that is, of the public houses, which, besides
beer, may also sell spirits. It is, further, the organ of the English Pietists and
ditto of the sporting characters, that is, of the people who make a business of
horseracing, betting, boxing and the like. The editor of this paper, Mr. Grant,
previously employed as a stenographer by the newspapers and quite uneducated in
a literary sense, has had the honour to get invited to Palmerston’s private
soirees. [...] It must be added that the pious patrons of this liquor-journal
stand under the ruling rod of the Earl of Shaftesbury and that Shaftesbury is
Palmerston’s son-in-law. Shaftesbury is the pope of the Low Churchmen,” who
blend the spiritus sanctus with the profane spirit of the honest Advertiser. [...]
The Morning Chronicle! [...] For well-nigh half a century the great organ
of the Whig Party and the not unfortunate rival of The Times, its star paled
after the Whig war. It went through metamorphoses of all sorts, turned itself
into a penny paper and sought to live by “sensations”, thus, for example, by
taking the side of the poisoner, Palmer. It subsequently sold itself to the
French Embassy, which, however, soon regretted throwing away its money. It then
threw itself into anti-Bonapartism, but with no better success. Finally, it found
the long missing buyer in Messrs. Yancey and Mann – the agents of the Southern
Confederacy in London. [...]
The Daily Telegraph is the private property
of a certain Levy. His paper is stigmatised by the English press itself as
Palmerston’s mob paper. [...] In the
dignity and moderation dictated to it, it seemed so strange to itself that
since then it has published half-a-dozen articles about this instance of
moderation and dignity displayed by it. As soon, however, as the order to
change its line reached it, the Telegraph has sought to compensate itself for
the constraint put upon it by outbawling all its comrades in howling loudly for
war. [...]
The Tory papers, The Morning Herald and The
Evening Standard, both belonging to the same boutique, are governed by a double
motive: on the one hand, hereditary hate for “the revolted English
colonies"'; on the other band, a chronic ebb in their finances. They know
that a war with America must shatter the present coalition Cabinet and pave the
way for a Tory Cabinet. With the Tory Cabinet official subsidies for The Herald
and The Standard would return. Accordingly, hungry wolves cannot howl louder
for prey than these Tory papers for an American war with its ensuing shower of
gold! [...]
Of the London daily press, The Daily News
and The Morning Star are the only papers left that are worth mentioning; both
work counter to the trumpeters of war. The Daily News is restricted in its
movement by a connection with Lord John Russell; The Morning Star (the organ of
Bright and Cobden) is diminished in its influence by its character as a
“peace-at-any-price paper”. [...] Most
of the London weekly papers are mere echoes of the daily press, therefore
overwhelmingly warlike. The Observer is in the ministry’s pay. The Saturday
Review strives for esprit and believes it has attained it by affecting a
cynical elevation above “humanitarian” prejudices. To show “esprit”, the
corrupt lawyers, parsons and schoolmasters that write this paper have smirked
their approbation of the slaveholders since the outbreak of the American Civil
War. [...]
The Spectator, The Examiner and,
particularly, MacMillan’s Magazine must be mentioned as more or less
respectable exceptions.
One sees: On the whole, the London press –
with the exception of the cotton organs, the provincial papers form a
commendable contrast – represents nothing but Palmerston and again Palmerston.
Palmerston wants war; the English people don’t want it. Imminent events will
show who will win in this duel, Palmerston or the people. In any case, he is
playing a more dangerous game than Louis Bonaparte at the beginning of 1859”.
Freedom and the Media
The issue of freedom of human beings is the core concern of Marx in his
theoretical orientation and all kinds of writings. His newspaper articles show his deep feelings for
emancipation of individuals from every kind of oppression and slavery.
For Marx, “freedom remains freedom whether it finds expression in printer's ink, in property, in the conscience, or in a political assembly” (Marx 1842g). “Freedom includes not only what my life is, but equally how I live, not only that I do what is free, but also that I do it freely. Otherwise what difference would there be between an architect and a beaver except that the beaver would be an architect with fur and the architect a beaver without fur?” (Marx 1842f). “Freedom is so much the essence of man that even its opponents implement it while combating its reality; they want to appropriate for, themselves as a most precious ornament what they have rejected as an ornament of human nature” (Marx 1842e). Criticizing those who appropriate freedom for themselves and reject for others, Marx is very explicit:
“these gentlemen, because they want to regard freedom not as the natural gift of the universal sunlight of reason, but as the supernatural gift of a specially favourable constellation of the stars, because they regard freedom as merely an individual property of certain persons and social estates, are in consequence compelled to include universal reason and universal freedom among the bad ideas and phantoms of "logically constructed systems. In order to save the special freedoms of privilege, they proscribe the universal freedom of human nature. Since, however, the bad brood of the nineteenth century, and the very consciousness of the modern knights that has been infected by this century, cannot comprehend what is in itself incomprehensible, because devoid of idea, namely, how internal, essential, universal determinations prove to be linked with certain human individuals by external, fortuitous, particular features, without being connected with the human essence, with reason in general, and therefore common to all individuals -- because of this they necessarily have recourse to the miraculous and the mystical. Further, because the real position of these gentlemen in the modern state does not at all correspond to the notion they have of that position, because they live in a world beyond the real one, and because therefore imagination is their head and heart, being dissatisfied with their practical activity, they necessarily have recourse to theory, but to the theory of the other world, to religion, which in their hands, however, is given a polemical bitterness impregnated with political tendencies and becomes more or less consciously only a holy cloak for very secular, but at the same time fantastic desires” (Marx 1842d).
For Marx:
“every restriction of freedom is a factual, irrefutable proof that at one time those who held power were convinced that freedom must be restricted, and this conviction then serves as a guiding principle for later views” (Marx 1842c). “Whenever one form of freedom is rejected, freedom in general is rejected and henceforth can have only a semblance of existence, since the sphere in which absence of freedom is dominant becomes a matter of pure chance. Absence of freedom is the rule and freedom an exception, a fortuitous and arbitrary occurrence” (Marx 1842g).
The Press: Censored and Free Press,
Good and Bad Press
Marx’s first
interest was in the control of communication, mostly because of his
journalistic endeavours starting in the early 1840s. He provided rich and striking
discussions about freedom of the press and censorship in six articles written
in May 1842. However, I also included other articles in the study.
Marx
considers press as means of public communication and means of struggle for the
truth and emancipation. According to him,
“the press is the most general way by which individuals can communicate their
intellectual being. It knows no respect for persons but only respect for
intelligence” (Marx 1842g). He asks, “do you want the ability for intellectual communication
to be determined officially by special external signs?” and
explicates: “what I cannot be for others,
I am not and cannot be for myself. If I am not allowed to be a spiritual force
for others, then I have no right to be a spiritual force for myself”. He
refuses to give “certain
individuals the privilege of being spiritual forces”
and expounds that “just as everyone
learns to read and write, so everyone must have the right to read and write” (Marx 1842g).
He divides the press into two basic groups: those who go along with the authorities and free press (or people’s press). Then, he compares their characteristics:
“free press is the ever-present, vigilant eye of the people’s spirit, the embodiment of a people’s trust in itself, the communication link that binds the individual to state and world, the embodied culture that transforms material struggles into spiritual ones while idealising their crude material form. It is the people’s outspoken self-confession, whose redeeming power is well known. It is the spiritual mirror, in which a people discover itself, and insight is the first prerequisite of wisdom. It is the public spirit, which may be delivered to every cottage cheaper than coal gas. It is multifarious, ubiquitous, and omniscient. It is the ideal world, which emerges from the real world only to return to it as an enriched spirit, newly charged” (Marx 1842f).
“The censored press remains bad even when it turns out good products, for these products are good only insofar as they represent the free press within the censored press, and insofar as it is not in their character to be products of the censored press. The free press remains good even when it produces bad products, for the latter are deviations from the essential nature of the free press. The essence of the free press is the characterful, rational, moral essence of freedom. The character of the censored press is the characterless monster of unfreedom; it is a civilised monster, a perfumed abortion” (Marx 1842e).
Marx’s following depiction of the censored press reminds us some of the basic tenets of the mainstream popular media today:
"It is the censored press that has a demoralizing effect. Inseparable from it is the most powerful vice, hypocrisy, and from this, its basic vice, come all its other defects, which lack even the rudiments of virtue, and its vice of passivity, loathsome even from the aesthetic point of view. [...] the press lies continually and has to deny even any consciousness of lying, and must cast off all shame. [...] It is the malicious gloating which extracts tittle-tattle and personalities from the great life of the peoples, ignores historical reason and serves up to the public only the scandals of history; being quite incapable of judging the essence of a matter, it fastens on single aspects of a phenomenon and on individuals, and imperiously demands mystery so that every blot on public life will remain hidden. [...] For its part, therefore, the people sinks partly into political superstition, partly into political disbelief, or, completely turning away from political life, becomes a rabble of private individuals” (Marx 1842f).
Marx does not
accept the division of press as good press and bad press when the issue is
censorship:
“If one wants to speak of two kinds of press, the distinction between them must be drawn from the nature of the press itself, not from considerations lying outside it. The censored press or the free press, one of these two must be the good or the bad press. The debate turns precisely on whether the censored press or the free press is good or bad, i.e., whether it is in the nature of the press to have a free or unfree existence. To make the bad press a refutation of the free press is to maintain that the free press is bad and the censored press good, which is precisely what had to be proved. Base frames of mind, personal intrigues, infamies, occur alike in the censored and the free press. Therefore the generic difference between them is not that they produce individual products of this or that kind; flowers grow also in swamps. We are concerned here with the essence, the inner character, which distinguishes the censored from the free press. [...] A free press that is bad does not correspond to its essence. The censored press with its hypocrisy, its lack of character, its eunuch's language, its dog-like tail-wagging, merely realises the inner conditions of its essential nature” (Marx 1842e).
Freedom of Press, Censorship
and Struggle
There should be
material existences of organized entities in specific relationships in order to
talk about freedom, domination and struggle. Two such entities are the press
and the organized body of censorship. Post-Napoleonic Germany had been promised
a constitutionally established string of provincial parliaments. In 1823,
Prussia formed eight parliaments (assemblies of the estates). They embraced the
heads of princely families, representatives of the knightly estate, i.e., the
nobility, of towns and rural communities. It was a parliamentary feudal system
under the attack of the liberal bourgeoisie. Marx was part of the revolutionary
struggle of the working class and also of the struggle of the bourgeoisie for
the advancement of capitalism. Marx fought for freedom and dignity and against
the official practices of press control and the manipulation of the truth. Marx
identified press practices with the right of freedom of expression that governs
the relations between the press and public and private authorities. Marx’s
articles were occasioned by the censorship instruction of the Prussian
Government in December 1841 and the freedom of the press debates in the Rheinland
province of Prussia, and they further include a discussion of “the censorship
decree in the Provisional Federal Act on the Press” for the German states
adopted on September 20, 1819.
Marx considers freedom of the press and
censorship as historical fact. For him, the "literary period of strict censorship, is therefore clear historical
proof that the censorship has undoubtedly influenced the development of the
German spirit in a disastrous, irresponsible way” (Marx 1842c).
The very first article addressing the
freedom of the press, censorship and writers was titled “Comments on the latest Prussian Censorship Instructions” and was
written between January 15 and February 10, 1842 and published in the Anekdota zur neuesten
deutschen Philosophie und Publicistik, in 1843
(Marx 1842a).
Distinguishing himself from those who exclaim "Beware of Greeks bearing gifts" (beware of Trojan horse) even before the appearance of the new Prussian censorship decree, Marx explains that censorship “is official criticism; its standards are critical standards, hence they least of all can be exempted from criticism, being on the same plane as the latter”, and the censor “is accuser, defender and judge in a single person; control of the mind is entrusted to the censor” (Marx 1842a). And he continues:
“Censorship is criticism as a monopoly of the government. But does not criticism lose its rational character if it is not open but secret, if it is not theoretical but practical, if it is not above parties but itself a party, if it operates not with the sharp knife of reason but with the blunt scissors of arbitrariness, if it only exercises criticism but will not submit to it, if it disavows itself during its realisation, and, finally, if it is so uncritical as to mistake an individual person for universal wisdom, peremptory orders for rational statements, ink spots for patches of sunlight, the crooked deletions of the censor for mathematical constructions, and crude force for decisive arguments?” (Marx 1842e).
Addressing the nature of the decree, he reminds us that “censorship is also to protect ruling forces from any kind of unwanted communication and criticism: The press is forbidden all control over officials as over such institutions that exist as a class of individuals” (Marx 1842a). Marx declares that the censorship law is not a law: “it is a police measure; but it is a bad police measure, for it does not achieve what it intends, and it does not intend what it achieves” (Marx 1842f).
In his articles, Marx also invalidates each rationale (such as human immaturity, good and bad press, and bad people with bad ideas) given by the speaker of the Assembly in order to justify the censorship. For instance, Marx argues:
“If the immaturity of the human race is the mystical ground for opposing freedom of the press, then the censorship at any rate is a highly reasonable means against the maturity of the human race. Man, individually and in the mass, is imperfect by nature. [...] The arguments of our speaker are imperfect, governments are imperfect, assemblies are imperfect, freedom of the press is imperfect, every sphere of human existence is imperfect. Hence if one of these spheres ought not to exist because of this imperfection, none of them has the right to exist, man in general has no right to exist. Amid all these imperfections, why should precisely the free press be perfect? Why does an imperfect provincial estate demand a perfect press? If then, by its very existence, everything human is imperfect, ought we therefore to lump everything together, have the same respect for everything, good and evil, truth and falsehood?” (Marx 1842d).
Invalidating the rationale, Marx continues:
“in order really to justify censorship, the speaker would have had to prove that censorship is part of the essence of freedom of the press; instead he proves that freedom is not part of man's essence. He rejects the whole genus in order to obtain one good species, for is not freedom after all the generic essence of all spiritual existence, and therefore of the press as well? In order to abolish the possibility of evil, he abolishes the possibility of good and realises evil, for only that which is a realisation of freedom can be humanly good. We shall therefore continue to regard the censored press as a bad press so long as it has not been proved to us that censorship arises from the very essence of freedom of the press (Marx 1842d).
Marx also
emphasizes that the press freedom has a different character: “Freedom of the press has a justification
quite different from that of censorship because it is itself an embodiment of
the idea, an embodiment of freedom, a positive good, whereas censorship is an
embodiment of unfreedom, the polemic of a world outlook of semblance against
the world outlook of essence; it has a merely negative nature” (Marx 1842e).
Marx addresses the repressive conditions in
Germany by indicating that twenty two years (since the enactment of the
censorship law at the end of 1819) “illegal
actions have been committed by an authority which has in its charge the highest
interest of the citizens, their minds, by an authority which regulates, even more than the Roman censors
did, not only the behaviour of individual citizens, but even the behaviour of
the public mind”. He provides an excellent
discussion on every futile approach to the problem (blaming the censors,
individuals, defects in the law or in institutions, nature of the law,
newspaper correspondents and public) and concludes: “resentment against the thing itself becomes resentment against persons.
It is believed that by a change of persons the thing itself has been changed. [...]
The real, radical
cure for the censorship would be its abolition; for the institution itself is a bad one, and institutions are more
powerful than people” (Marx 1842a).
For Marx, “only struggle can convince both the government and the people, as well
as the press itself, that the press has a real and necessary right to
existence. Only struggle can show whether this right to existence is a
concession or a necessity, an illusion or a truth” (Marx 1843). “Censorship does not abolish the struggle,
it makes it one-sided, it converts an open struggle into a hidden one, it
converts a struggle over principles into a struggle of principle without power
against power without principle” (Marx 1842a).
The Difference between Press Law
and Censorship
Marx considers censorship law as a precautionary measure of the police against freedom. He compares it with press law in 1842:
“In the press law, freedom punishes. In the censorship law, freedom is punished. The censorship law is a law of suspicion against freedom. The press law is a vote of confidence which freedom gives itself. The press law punishes the abuse of freedom. The censorship law punishes freedom as an abuse. It treats freedom as a criminal, or is it not regarded in every sphere as a degrading punishment to be under police supervision? [...] The press law is a real law because it is the positive existence of freedom. It regards freedom as the normal state of the press, the press as the mode of existence of freedom, and hence only comes into conflict with a press offence as an exception that contravenes its own rules and therefore annuls itself. Freedom of the press asserts itself as a press law, against attacks on freedom of the press itself, i.e., against press offences. The press law declares freedom to be inherent in the nature of the criminal. Hence what he has done against freedom he has done against himself and this self-injury appears to him as a punishment in which he sees a recognition of his freedom. [...] Therefore the press law is the legal recognition of freedom of the press. It constitutes right, because it is the positive existence of freedom. It must therefore exist, even if it is never put into application” (Marx 1842d).
Marx’s positive view of the law had changed within a few years. For instance, in 1848, he considered the Prussian Press Bill as “classic monuments of Napoleonic press despotism” (Padover 1974, 121). In 1849, he stated that the Prussian despotism was worse than the Napoleonic despotism:
“Prussian despotism, on the other hand, confronts me in the shape of an official with a superior, sacrosanct being. His official character is as integral part of his personality as consecration is of a Catholic priest. [...] To insult such a priest, even one who is not functioning, who is not present, and who is back in private life, remains a profanation of religion, a desecration" (Marx, 1849b).
Marx refuses the claims about the preventive nature of a law. According to Marx, laws
“cannot prevent a man's actions, for they are indeed the inner laws of life of his action itself, the conscious reflections of his life. Hence law withdraws into the background in the face of man's life as a life of freedom, and only when his actual behaviour has shown that he has ceased to obey the natural law of freedom does law in the form of state law compel him to be free, just as the laws of physics confront me as something alien only when my life has ceased to be the life of these laws, when it has been struck by illness. Hence a preventive law is a meaningless contradiction” (Marx 1842d). “A preventive law, therefore, has within it no measure, no rational rule, for a rational rule can only result from the nature of a thing, in this instance of freedom (Marx 1842e).
Freedom of Press and Freedom of
Trade
Human beings
produce and reproduce their material and immaterial life. In regard to the
press, Marx clearly explains its role and nature of the relationship between
the material and immaterial production in the following sentence: “What makes the
press the most powerful lever for promoting culture and the intellectual
education of the people is precisely the fact that it transforms the material
struggle into an ideological struggle, the struggle of flesh and blood into a
struggle of minds, the struggle of need, desire, empiricism into a struggle of
theory, of reason, of form” (Marx 1842j). This
explanation demonstrates the connection and distinction
between the two, but
also shows the simplicity and the invalidity of the assertion that Marx/Marxism
is an economic reductionist approach and establishes wrong causal relationship
between the base
and superstructure.
Marx differentiates freedom of the press
(journalists’ right of free expression) from freedom of trade (right of
business): “If the press itself is regarded merely as a trade, then, as a trade
carried on by means of the brain, it deserves greater freedom than a trade
carried on by means of arms and legs. The emancipation of arms and legs only
becomes humanly significant through the emancipation of the brain, for it is
well known that arms and legs become human arms and legs only because of the
head which they serve” (Marx 1842g).
Marx does not accept the idea that freedom of the press is a part of freedom of trade:
“Freedom of trade, freedom of property, of conscience, of the press, of the courts, are all species of one and the same genus, of freedom without any specific name. But it is quite incorrect to forget the difference because of the unity and to go so far as to make a particular species the measure, the standard, the sphere of other species. This is an intolerance on the part of one species of freedom, which is only prepared to tolerate the existence of others if they renounce themselves and declare themselves to be its vassals. [...] Freedom of trade is precisely freedom of trade and no other freedom because within it the nature of the trade develops unhindered according to the inner rules of its life. [...] Every particular sphere of freedom is the freedom of a particular sphere, just as every particular mode of life is the mode of life of a particular nature. How wrong it would be to demand that the lion should adapt himself to the laws of life of the polyp!” (Marx 1842g).
“To make freedom of the press a variety of freedom of trade is a defence that kills it before defending it, for do I not abolish the freedom of a particular character if I demand that it should be free in the manner of a different character? Your freedom is not my freedom, says the press to a trade. As you obey the laws of your sphere, so will I obey the laws of my sphere. To be free in your way is for me identical with being unfree, just as a cabinet-maker would hardly feel pleased if he demanded freedom for his craft and was given as equivalent the freedom of the philosopher” (Marx 1842g).
Acknowledging that “the press exists also as a trade, but then it is not the affair of
writers, but of printers and booksellers”, Marx pinpoints the crucial difference by stating that “we are concerned here not with the freedom
of trade of printers and booksellers, but with freedom of the press. [...] The
primary freedom of the press lies in not being a trade” (Marx 1842g).
Public Rights and Freedom
Marx defended the public’s right and freedom while defending freedom of the press against the control by the ruling powers. For Marx,
“The law against a frame of mind is not a
law of the state promulgated for its citizens, but the law of one party against
another party. The law which punishes tendency abolishes the equality of the
citizens before the law. It is a law which divides, not one which unites, and
all laws which divide are reactionary. It is not a law, but a privilege. One
may do what another may not do, not because the latter lacks some objective
quality, like a minor in regard to concluding contracts; no, because his good
intentions and his frame of mind are under suspicion. The moral state assumes
its members to have the frame of mind of the state, even if they act in
opposition to an organ of the state, against the government. But in a society
in which one organ imagines itself the sole, exclusive possessor of state
reason and state morality, in a government which opposes the people in
principle and hence regards its anti-state frame of mind as the general, normal
frame of mind, the bad conscience of a faction invents laws against tendency,
laws of revenge, laws against a frame of mind which has its seat only in the
government members themselves. Laws against frame of mind are based on an
unprincipled frame of mind on an immoral, material view of the state” (Marx 1842a).
Writers, Professional Practices
and Professional Ideologies
On Writers
Journalists (and academicians) in their professional practices have mainly
one of two choices: The first one is to take the multiple risks and inconveniences and become an ardent
follower of the truth. The second one is to run after a multitude of rewards,
become a devoted follower and supporter of the status quo. In fact, an internal
negotiation happens and the decision depends on mostly the degree of risk the
journalist can take.
Marx was
the first kind of journalist. For him, journalism is a tool for truth and of the
struggle for emancipation. For Marx, “truth is general, it does not belong to me alone, it
belongs to all, it owns me, I do not own it. My property is the form, which is my spiritual
individuality. [...] Truth includes not only the result but also the path to
it. The investigation of truth must itself be true; true investigation is
developed truth, the dispersed elements of which are brought together in the
result” (Marx 1842a). He despises any practice and
law that prescribes the form, the spiritual individuality. Similarly, he also
despises any professional practice that follows such a prescribed path.
The second type of journalist is not an honourable
professional, even as much as the “dull bureaucrat” who censored Marx’s
articles. The
journalist reproduces the same material and immaterial conditions, but he/she
does it knowingly, consciously, premeditatedly and he/she mostly is aware of the
fact that s/he is distorting, lying or fabricating factoids. However, he/she is
not in the same material and mental condition as the dull bureaucrat or the
servant-driver of Edward Bernays’ Dum Jack (Ewen 1996). The dull bureaucrat
named Lauenz Dolleschall would not let anyone “making fun of divine things”, thus would censor everything that looks
suspicious to him and would say, as Marx quotes: “Now it’s a matter of my bread and butter. Now I strike out everything”
(cited Quotations are from Padover 1974:
xviii). However, the journalist’s decisions are not based on his/her irrational
or illogical beliefs, but his/her well calculated interest: he/she would edit,
thus censor everything that does not fit in his/her interest and interests of
his/her employers.
“I prefer to follow the great events of the world, to analyze the course of history, than to occupy myself with local bosses, with the police and prosecuting magistrates. However great these gentlemen may imagine themselves in their own fancy, they are nothing, absolutely nothing, in the gigantic battles of the present time. I consider we are making a real sacrifice when we decide to break a lance with these opponents. But, firstly, it is the duty of the press to come forward on behalf of the oppressed in its immediate neighbourhood. And furthermore, gentlemen, the edifice of servitude has its most specific support in the subordinate political and social powers which directly confront the private life of an individual, of a living person. It is not sufficient to fight against general relationships and the highest authorities. The press must decide to enter the lists against a specific police officer, a specific Public Prosecutor, a specific Landrat. [...] The first duty of the press now is to undermine all the foundations of the existing political state of affairs (Marx 1849b).
The statement above indicates that Marx attributes an important role to
the press and journalists in the struggle for freedom. For him, “the press in general is a realisation of human freedom.
Consequently, where a press there is freedom of the press”. Then, for Marx the question of
freedom of the press is not “a question whether freedom
of the press ought to exist, for it always exists. The question is whether
freedom of the press is a privilege of particular individuals or whether it is
a privilege of the human mind. The question is whether a right of one side ought
to be a wrong for the other side. The question is whether freedom of the mind has more right
than freedom against the mind” (Marx 1842e).
His discussion and explanations on and defence
of freedom of thought and communication and of the dignity of a writer are important
lessons for certain media professionals (and academicians) who safely practice
their daily money making business in shameless compliance with the interest of
private and state powers, while other journalists (and academicians) are in jail
more than five years without a
proper trial for thinking and planning to overthrow the government in countries
like Turkey, where a glocal civil dictatorship of global capitalism has been tested.
Turkey has more journalists in prison than any other country in the world. More
than 100 journalists are currently in prison. There are between 700 and 1,000
ongoing cases in Turkey that could result in more imprisonments and up to 3,000
years imprisonment (http://europe.ifj.org/en/articles?search=Turkey)
Mustafa Balbay (a famous
journalist and recently elected member of the parliament) and Prof. Dr. Mehmet
Haberal (a worldwide famous medical doctor, president of Baskent University and
recently elected member of the parliament) have been in jail for more than 3
years for planning a coup against the ruling government. Anyone who writes and
says something about the situation is accused of “attempting to influence fair
trial” and is put in jail (http://www.dha.com.tr/chp-leaders-immunity-in-danger-accused-of-attempting-to-influence-fair-trial-son-dakika-haberi_255874.html).
Current dominant professionalism
in the media (and academia) is a despicable kind of professionalism that Marx
criticizes in his articles.
Marx also sets the basic professional standard for media professionals by differentiating a writer/journalist from a businessperson:
“the writer, of course, must earn in order to be able to live and write, but he must by no means live and write to earn. [...] The writer does not at all look on his work as a means. It is an end in itself, it is so little a means for him himself and for others that, if need be, he sacrifices his existence to its existence. [...] The writer who degrades the press into being a material means deserves as punishment for this internal unfreedom the external unfreedom of censorship, or rather his very existence is his punishment. (May 19, 1842g).
Criticizing the division of authorised and unauthorised writers, Marx asks: “for whom, then, is the division of writers into authorised and unauthorised intended?” and he provides an answer and another question: “Obviously not for the truly authorised, for they can make their influence felt without that. Is it therefore for the "unauthorised" who want to protect themselves and impress others by means of an external privilege?” . He adds:
“If the German looks back on his history, he will find one of the main reasons for his slow political development, as also for the wretched state of literature prior to Lessing, in the existence of "authorised writers.". It was the unauthorised writers who created our literature. Gottsched and Lessing-there you have the choice between an "authorised" and "unauthorised" writer! [...] Freedom of the press will certainly not be achieved by a crowd of official writers being recruited by you from your ranks. The authorised authors would be the official authors, the struggle between censorship and freedom of the press would be converted into a struggle between authorised and unauthorised writers" (Marx 1842g).
On professional practices
Marx has many
statements in articles and letters to editors on the general and daily press
practices (e.g.; Marx, 1842h; 1842i; 1842k; 1843; 1843b; 1843c; 1848; 1849;
1860; 1861). They can be grouped as follows:
·
Writings about the government
persecution of press by imposing a ban on newspapers: Marx questions the
legitimacy of such persecutions and the nature of the condition of the press.
·
Writings about the reactions of
other newspapers and writers on government persecution of the press: Marx
criticizes those who have unfair or unjust approaches.
·
Remarks, replies, evaluations
and criticism of the writings of the other journalists’ about an issue, claim,
assertion or criticism: Here we see statements ranging from agreement to strong
polemics and accusations.
·
Evaluation of strategic and/or
stylistic exercises of the press.
·
Evaluation of the press coverage
on politics, relationship between press and politicians, press and people;
attitudes of the press on war.
·
Evaluation of the press in
general.
Observing the attitude of the press towards the official use of repression and censorship measures, Marx heavily criticizes the German press (his assessment fits also e.g. Turkish media today):
“The German daily press is certainly the flabbiest, sleepiest and most cowardly institution under the sun! The greatest infamies can be perpetrated before its very eyes, even directed against itself, and it will remain silent and conceal everything; if the facts had not become known by accident, one would never have learnt through the press what splendid March violets have been brought into being by divine grace in some places” (Marx 1849).
For Marx, the press should protect
individuals, but not everybody: “The
press is obliged to reveal and denounce circumstances, but I am convinced that
it should not denounce individuals, unless there is no other way of preventing
a public evil or unless publicity already prevails throughout political life so
that the German concept of denunciation no longer exists” (Marx 1843d).
Marx positions the press in society and attributes a mediating role to press between the public and ruling forces. At the same time, he considers the press as an indispensable means of voicing the needs and grievances of the people:
“the rulers and the ruled alike are in need of a third element, which would be political without being official, hence not based on bureaucratic premises, an element which would be of a civil nature without being bound up with private interests and their pressing need. This supplementary element with the head of a citizen of the state and the heart of a citizen is the free press. In the realm of the press, rulers and ruled alike have an opportunity of criticising their principles and demands, and no longer in a relation of subordination, but on terms of equality as citizens of the state; no longer as individuals, but as intellectual forces, as exponents of reason. The “free press”, being the product of public opinion, is also the creator of public opinion. It alone can make a particular interest a general one, it alone can make the distressed state of the Mosel region an object of general attention and general sympathy on the part of the Fatherland, it alone can mitigate the distress by dividing the feeling of it among all” (Marx 1843f).
For Marx, the language of the free press is the language of human conditions, not the determining factor of the human life and human relations. He emphasizes the use of language and its connection with the life conditions and bureaucratic report:
“The attitude of the press to the people’s conditions of life is based on reason, but it is equally based on feeling. Hence it does not speak only in the clever language of judgment that soars above circumstances, but the passionate language of circumstances themselves, a language which cannot and should not be demanded of official reports. The free press, finally, brings the people’s need in its real shape, not refracted through any bureaucratic medium, to the steps of the throne, to a power before which the difference between rulers and ruled vanishes and there remain only equally near and equally far removed citizens of the state” (Marx 1843f).
The nature of a writer and his/her professional practices indicate his/her professional ideology. The duty Marx assigns to the journalist and press, for instance, in his defence speech above, shows the professional worldview that he aligns himself with. On the other hand, Marx’s criticisms about the writers and the press demonstrate the difference between the professional ideology of those who adhere to the dominant mode and relations and those who do not.
Conclusion
Theory in general
is a systematic and consistent explanation of, e.g., organized human practices.
Explanations should correspond to the explained, otherwise theory itself or
theoretical explanation loses its validity and reliability. However, the
validity and reliability can be forged by creating images on the correspondence
of theory to practice and on the nature of the practices and/or explanations in
such a way that the explanations, despite their irrelevant, inconsistent,
inappropriate or incompatible nature, are made valid ones via extensive
production, circulation and legitimization practices. Legitimization is done
through at least two mechanisms: The first one is to establish domination
through inter-subjectivity that is based on rationalized claims of objectivity
and, furthermore, universality. The second one is the exercise of power that
espouses such inter-subjectivity. Namely, such domination is gained and
sustained through organized relations of power and personal interests in a
society wherein production and reproduction of material life can be done
through the praxis of human agents, who drive their consciousness from the
organized material and immaterial life and at the same time, reflect their
thinking/consciousness to their material and immaterial conditions. Hence,
those who have the power and the means of control have advantages in deciding
what, how and where to produce and distribute the material and immaterial
products and services. The academic world and the nature of academic production
become integral parts of this inter-subjective domination. The findings of the
present study clearly indicate that the prevailing nature of academic journals’
orientations in issue selection, problem formulation, study objectives,
theoretical and methodological approaches carry particular expressions of
domination. Most studies published in Media and Communication Studies-journals are
various manifestations of mainstream approaches; all are interested in attitudes, interests, preferences
and behaviours of individuals and advancing the functionality and interests of corporate
and institutional structures. The remaining studies mainly
serve as controlled or functional alternatives, with few exceptions. The prevailing
dominance of variations of functionalism in communication studies has been
discussed by various writers. For instance, Hardt (1997) points out the
existence of a dominant functionalist perspective of communication research
since the 1940s and a preoccupation with issue orientation based on the practical
demands of a growing commercial investment in the media industries. He also
indicates that the ideological orientations of U.S. Cultural Studies are
determined by liberal-pluralist ideas and that they support
commercial-industrial interests that guide the relationship between media and
society.
Luring academics to participate and shaping
of mental production and relations through the numerous promotional ways and
means by the power structures are not new. There are many examples in the communication
field: The psychological and cold war warriors (Lasswell, Shills, Lazarsfeld,
Cantril, Dewitt, Gallop, Likert, Lerner, Berelson, Schramm, Pool and the like) received
millions of dollars for involvement in ideological production and distribution by
military and intelligence communities and foundations connected with them
(e.g., FBI, CIA, Rockefeller, Ford and Carnegie Foundations, RAND Corporation).
Such forms of participation by academicians are still a part of the practice of
sustainable domination. There are valuable studies concerning close relations
among academicians, state structures and various foundations (e.g., Doob 1947;
Schiller 1974; Simpson 1994; Gary 1996; Glander 2000; Solovey 2001; Maxwell
2003; Pooley 2008; Summers 2008; Jonas 2010).
At present, psychological warfare activities
and studies are extended to the entire civilian sphere of social life and
include multitudes of legitimized and justified relations among multiple
parties within a country and at international levels. Early studies with their
funding allies helped to shape the formation concept of communication and the direction
of the communication field not only in the US, but also throughout the world.
Recent studies continue to reproduce the ongoing warfare not only in the
political arena, but also in the economic field in order to maintain
sustainable development via mind-, interest- and behaviour-management.
One of the important implications of the
present study is that participation in networks of profitable relations, the probability
of getting financial benefits from various resources, getting formal
recognition and success in university departments, finding a reputable place in
ruling academic circles, getting published in leading scholarly journals, and
getting funds from granting institutions, financing bodies and professional
associations require an academic stance that (a) totally ignores the Marxist
approach, (b) demonstrates an open anti-Marxist stand, (c) engages in trying to
invalidate Marxist views by adopting one of the secure and beneficial
approaches based on culturalism, post-structuralism, post-modernism,
post-positivism and the like, (e) provides mostly wrong and distorted
explanations like claiming the demise of Marxism, the end of ideology,
democratization, knowledge society, interdependence, decolonisation, identity,
and a post-Marxist shift.
The Continuation of Theoretical Domination that Supports Ruling
Power Structures
This study found
that theories and methods used in Media and Communication Studies are mostly
based on finding effects and developing the mechanisms of control of individual
worldviews and behaviours. The dominant effect research has started with a
simple model of persuasion and transmission that is characterized by direct and
unmediated effects, typically based on persuasion and the audience modelling of
observed behaviour. The interest in effects evolved to analytic constructs of
audience motivation and disposition of active audience theories such as the elaboration
likelihood model, attribution theory, cognitive consistency and selective
exposure, and uses and gratifications theory. Adding the contextual context to
the individual psychology and/or moving to macro explanations, theories like
two-step- and multiple step-flow, diffusion theory, knowledge gaps and social
network approaches brought about new research design techniques, especially on qualitative
measures, interaction and historical data analysis. Moving to the macro level
of design and analysis in the 1970s, the political, economic and institutional
context of communication, theories like cultivation theory followed the liberal-democratic
critical approach by emphasizing the cultivation of middle class ideology and
cumulative effects of the media. For softening the media effects on the
audience, theories like agenda setting and media dependency were emerged.
Later, agenda melding, priming and framing theories were added to such approaches. In the neo-liberal atmosphere of the 1980s, theories like
reception theory, liberal-pluralist cultural studies and identity theories
emerged and proliferated alongside the dominant and evolving effects tradition.
Concepts like reception, deconstruction, reconstruction and interpretation were
put in circulation: The interpretative turn brought back the active and
atomized individual. The present study found that such approaches do not
receive much interest in most of the journals studied. Proliferation
of and support for such approaches takes place in the peripheries of the ruling
circles of current research practices. However, Klapper’s summary of mass
communication research in the 1960s and his suggestions seem still to be a leading
guide for most studies in the communication field:
(a) Mainstream orientations focus on
various psychological dispositions of audience members;
(b) Culturalists, social interactionists,
liberal-pluralists and social psychologists have interests in the situated
social context of message reception beyond socio-demographics;
(c) Some post-structuralists focus on the
structure of beliefs among audience members, not just the direction of beliefs
as it was before;
(d) Audience-reception analysts reintroduce
the active audience thesis in a highly elaborate cover and participate in
saving the industry from social responsibility.
Klapper’s suggestions and the current
pseudo-critical and functional alternative research orientations are important
because they are all about “knowing people” in detail in order to control them.
Theoretical domination is maintained also
through creating functional alternatives and promoting existing functional
alternatives. Such maintenance and promotion is evident in academic relations
and production. The present study found that the studies that try to totally or
partially invalidate Marx or claim that Marxism is waning, inadequate, ethno-centric
and insensitive to identities other than class identity are not mainstream or
liberal-democrat oriented studies. Mainstream studies ignore and
liberal-democrats generally appreciate Marx. The study findings indicate that
Marx is not “contested, modified, and deformed, frequently distorted,
overstated, and abused by enthusiastic practitioners and promoters” (Artz 2006,
6), but by various kinds of so-called “critical” or ”alternative” approaches.
The present study could not find any “enthusiastic promoter of Marx/Marxism” in
articles, but found that “alternatives” are “alternative to Marx” and the most
“critical” ones are in fact “criticism directed against Marx”.
Another interesting, let’s say “tactic,” is
that there has been a popular tendency since the late sixties that some writers
(for instance, Foucault, Baudrillard, Laclau and Mouffe, and their followers)
start with Marx and end with maintaining the invalidation, demise or inadequacy
of Marx. This kind of tendency is very popular and fruitful because such mental
products are the best mind management and control tools since they pretend to
be the current and valid alternative voices (overtly or covertly directed against
Marx).
Reproduction of Theoretical and Methodological Poverty
The present study
also found that most of the studies, especially empirical and pseudo-empirical
(survey) studies, seriously lack theoretical reasoning in design, hypothesis
construction, and the presentation of conclusions. Similarly, some previous studies
found low levels of theory use in Media and Communication Studies (Potter and
Riddle 2007; Kamhawi and Weaver 1999). Furthermore, the statements of study
objectives are based on meeting the interests of industrial needs for knowing
and controlling the audience/consumers and media/knowledge workers.
Such findings support the theoretical
reasoning that such scholars only care about issues/problems related to personal
and organized-private interests rather than establishing a sound theoretical
rationale to explain the nature of any phenomena. Such an orientation further
indicates that the academic world is mainly an integrated part of the capitalist
industrial structure.
Most qualitative studies that claim that
they are doing “discourse analysis” have inconsistent and conflicting
theoretical narrations and provide no or no proper information about the way
they perform the analysis. Providing many inconsistent theoretical statements
and explanations and using highly restricted codes does not reduce or eliminate
any uncertainty, rather increases it.
Most of the quantitative studies that use
multivariate statistical analysis have no hypotheses that require multi-variate
statistical testing. Namely, most hypotheses are hypotheses that are based on
bivariate relations, hence require bivariate analysis. Furthermore, there are
studies that provide only some questions, but do not extract any hypotheses,
but do statistical analysis (including factor analysis or test causal relations
without providing a causal hypothesis). All of this means that positivist-empirical
research designs, data analysis and findings have serious validity problems.
The Marginalization, Downgrading or Keeping Out of Significant
Alternatives, and the Promotion of
Controlled and Functional Alternatives
Existence of
domination means also the existence of the dominated, which makes domination
and struggle for liberation continuous and dynamic. The struggle cannot be a monolithic
one, rather it has multiple forms and levels that are interrelated not only
with each other, but also with the various expressions of dominant practices.
The present study found that there are articles with “critical and highly
critical content”, however very few can be considered a real/meaningful
alternative that is based on, e.g., the idea that societal change means a
change in the mode and the relations of production. Almost all of the “critical
articles” are overtly or covertly, fully, mostly or generally anti-Marxian and
are offsprings of, for instance, Durkheim, Heidegger, Husserl, Gadamer, Lacan,
Deleuze, Guattari, Foucault, Baudrillard, Said, Habermas, Laclau and Mouffe.
“Criticizing” does not make a theoretical
approach critical. “Marx beyond Marx” means a different methodological and
theoretical musing if it is not based on Marx’s approach. Theoretical approaches that base their main
premises on, e.g., the change in the gender composition of parliament, ethnic
composition of work force in wage-slavery or obtaining legal recognition of gay
marriage are not “alternative orientations” or “critical orientations” because
they want acknowledgement by and reintegration into the dominant structure that
they criticize. The capitalist system does not become a humane system even if
the parliament of capitalism is composed of 100% women, liberals, leftists or
even communists. Then, the move away from class analysis to the current kinds
of identity politics is an integral part of the global policy of diversion and
“divide and rule”. Moving away from the interest in social, economical
and ideological/cultural studies and focusing instead on the individual
expressions in daily life, away from human beings in organized relations to a
constitutive function of textual or other discursive manifestations and the
like does not constitute a socially responsible, “critical” and/or Marxian
analysis. I consider them, in the final analysis, controlled and/or functional
alternatives buttressing the current capitalist mode and relations.
The communication field was established by sociologists,
social psychologists, and political scientists. It developed as a social
science field. Communication
stands at the intersection of every field in the social sciences (an all other
sciences). However, it is not a stepchild or colony of scholars of any field
who do research and write about communication without first having a sound
knowledge about communication. I have been criticizing the situation in Turkey
by declaring that the communication field is still colonized by those who do
not read even the fundamental literature in communication, are mostly unsuccessful
in their own fields and find secure place in the colony (the communication field).
In recent years, the communication field has been colonized by the worst kind
of outsiders, who are harmfully altering not only communication, but all fields
of the social sciences. They come especially from literature, semiotics, and
hermeneutics. The situation gets worse by the fact that an increasing number of
scholars in communication, who have no background in literature, semiotics, or
culture, join the band-wagon by doing cultural studies or discourse analysis. The
new colonizers pull especially mass communication away from a field dealing
with actual human relations in organized power structures and interest
relations towards becoming a field of interpretations of the detached texts and
meaningless discourses. Correspondingly, the findings of this study indicate
that qualitative communication research is leaving the actual human relations
and societal conditions aside and moves towards the analysis of the end
products in such a way that the product, process or textual interaction (e.g.,
language, interpretation, deconstruction, or discourse) is made the
“determining agent/factor.”
Producing the Material and Immaterial Riches and Poverty
The nature of
domination and struggle in academic relations, as well as in journal- and
article- publishing, depends on the historically determined conditions of the mode
of production and production relations at a certain time and place. The development
of a field and “exchange of scientific ideas” are deeply connected with
establishing, sustaining/maintaining and expanding the dominance of intersubjectivities
formed by various interest groups gathered around various ideologies/theories
and research traditions that provide work security, status and financial
enrichment. This dominance of the system of mutual interests involves the
control of production and distribution of functional knowledge for the benefit
of the system. In the 21st
century, power relations and forms of competition within the scientific
and research communities have been shaped in such a way that it reached to the
point of “science and research in personal interests” which are realized
through serving those who pay more in terms of money, fame and status.
There
is a dominance of quantitative multitude, qualitative poverty and normalized
abnormality in academic journals. Within this frame, the study findings provide
support for the fact that there are at least three interrelated dominant
immaterial productions (production of ideologies,
thoughts, consciousness, beliefs, feelings, emotions, empathy, sensitivity and
everything that is not material) in the current global economic and political
marketplace.
The first one is the production of
knowledge that is based on scientific research for the advancement of
capitalist structures and relations. Such knowledge production is rarely done
in universities, but mostly in controlled environments like in corporate
R&D departments, private research firms and government institutions. Such
knowledge is rarely produced for everybody and the market (not as a commodity);
such knowledge is an undisclosed, secret and highly protected product. Such
products can be marketed only when advanced knowledge is produced and control
mechanisms are established. Such knowledge makes industrial production,
advancement and control possible. We cannot see such knowledge in academic journals, unless it is found
necessary to establish control and enhance market supremacy.
We have no access to them.
The second one is the kind of knowledge
that is produced for mind and behaviour management. We can divide this
knowledge production into a few subcategories:
(1)
Knowledge about people: Such
knowledge: This kind of knowledge provides helpful information about people as
consumers, customers and voters for industrial and
institutional decision and policymaking, implementation, auditing, monitoring
and revisions. Marketing, advertising and positivist-empirical communication
studies work in this domain.
(2)
Knowledge for better work performance:
The purpose of this kind of knowledge is to justify the existence of industrial
structures and practices, work relations, wage policies and working conditions,
and to installs mind-sets and behavioural dispositions that make people work
harder and get gratifications from abstract thoughts, feelings, identifications
at work. The exam and grading systems in schools prepare students for readily
accepting the structural inequalities in the industrial system. Organizational
communication studies that focus on communication auditing, sensitivity
training, empathy, effective communication, workers’ attitudes, behaviour, work
performance and relationships at work and the like are designed for
manipulation of workers so that there is better performance without raising
wages and improving working conditions. Public relation activities within
organizations carry the same purpose.
(3) Knowledge for people: This kind of knowledge is provided in order to maintain a certain level and type of consciousness, feelings and sensitivities that justify the conditions of the prevailing mode and relations in life and make people adjust to miserable conditions and ready for accepting individual or mass killings enforced by the ruling forces (Jay Gould’s infamous statement saying that “I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half” has lost validity, because the ruling forces do not have to hire them now since they are already hired and used). Some parts of such knowledge (as in the production and use of emotions, religious and superstitious values) are a continuation of successfully used strategies of ruling forces throughout human history. Such ruling knowledge of previous times are reshaped and reproduced in a country and distributed globally in the same or glocalized forms and used by other dominant classes in other countries. This is one of the essential parts of globalisation of the capitalist mode. Content and significance of this knowledge are not due to its universal validity, but due to the utmost functionality for the ruling interests and practices. For instance, religious ideas and sensitivities that made people refuse to
watch
television and consider the use of radio and loudspeakers in mosques as a sin
in the 1960s, were reversed in 1970s. This is called the integration of the old
functional Ideas, structures and practices into the new interests and the
ruling mode and relations. This is true not only for the knowledge of people,
but also for knowledge for and by professionals throughout the world: Most articles
in the 77 journals in this study were written by academicians from all over the
world. Other parts of knowledge belong to the current mode of class domination.
Whether it has trans-historical character or not, this kind of knowledge is used
to sustain all probable kinds of domination over people. Furthermore, knowledge
for people is functional for creating “conspicuous consumption” and consumer
society, and for establishing a political atmosphere of certain interests,
participation, enmity and readiness. This kind of knowledge’s aim is to freeze
people’s intellect and interest at an early teenage level. Such “knowledge”
(reproduction of ignorance as knowing) is provided by the mass media, cultural
and political organizations and to a varying degree by formal education.
(4)
Knowledge for professionals and by
professionals: This is the kind of situationally conditioned knowledge that
is produced in order to orient the attention, interest, research and
educational concerns of scholars towards certain functional professional activities.
The activities in daily organizational routines that are based on such
knowledge reproduce organizational life. Most mental workers in the production
of e.g. a television sitcom can have a false general knowledge about the nature
of the product. However, such probability is rather low when it comes to newspaper
editors, media professionals and scholars. A scholar is aware of the meaning of
a theoretical and methodological choice he/she makes. It is a well calculated
or predetermined preference. There is another character of the knowledge and
knowledge production under discussion: the number of professional research
findings and products that are actually used by the organizational decision
makers are at a minimal level. However, most knowledge activities’ goal is to
keep academicians busy in certain orientations and relational domains. Products
of such activities are useless piles of junks for industrial use and, at the
same time, extremely useful for the industrial politics of mind and interest control.
In this kind of production relations, most academicians are just like football
fans: The masses are oriented toward watching or going to football games, the academicians
are oriented toward doing research in certain dominant modes. The only
difference between the academicians and the masses is that the masses get only
psychological satisfaction, while academicians get extra benefits like money
and status.
The third
one is the production of knowledge on the conditions for knowledge production. We
find at least two ruling strategic approaches here: Exclusion and distorted
inclusion. One part of this kind of knowledge production has exclusionary
character: As it was found in this study, it excludes Marx’s (and Marxist)
analysis of knowledge production and conditions of knowledge production. This
exclusion is done through various mechanisms. The foremost one is the probable
productive value or surplus creation probability of the production. For
instance, the success of exclusion of an idea is achieved when individuals think
that such idea (e.g. learning mass media theory) is useless or that supporting
such an idea (e.g. talking about significance of marxist method in communication
studies) is not rewarding. The inclusionary character includes various kinds of
distortions, invalidations, downgrading, marginalization and inappropriateness.
The
explanations about knowledge production above indicate that everyone in various
positions in society as an individual and every organized entity participate in
production (and dissemination and use) of knowledge. Individuals’ knowledge and
knowledge of organized entities and the behavioural manifestations are
ideologically situated and show the nature of their positions in the class
domination and struggle. In the present study, almost all communication
scholars with very few exceptions position themselves to serve the interests of
the capitalist class. This is most probably because they want to collect the
material and immaterial rewards distributed by the same class and also stay
away from multiple forms of punishment, which is applied on those who behave differently.
They have no interest in the idea of knowledge created, distributed and used
for the general interest. Moreover, they are not
interested in influencing media practices, policies and taking any urgent
social problem as an issue to investigate.
Such findings also provide support for
Marx’s conclusions on the nature of the distribution of wealth. The production
of wealth is social since everybody participates in the process, but the
distribution is private in such a way that a small number of people who own and
control the means of production appropriate most of the wealth. The same
problem exists in the production, distribution and use of knowledge: The
distribution of wealth in terms of material gains and in terms of functional
knowledge is highly controlled.
Extending the Prevailing Structure of Interests and Relations
to the New Media
The present study
found that most historically prevailing issues, problems, concerns, ideologies,
methods and theories are also carried to and used in the new computer-mediated
communication research. The similar mystifications and functional discussions
we witnessed during the 1960s about television are reproduced about the Internet.
There are new issues and data collection
techniques, because of the nature of new personal communication technologies
like mobile phones and computer-mediated communication. However, they are only
tools for the implementation of
organized objectives, hence they do not change or abandon the prevailing
ideological and material interests. Some new issues are renewed old-issues like
the role and effects of the new media. There are also mystified new terms like
social media, as if the other media are not social, not economical and not
directorial and administrative. In fact, all new media are social, economical,
industrial, administrative and directional. Technological
multi-directionality does not make a communicative action democratic or
symmetrical or two-way; a mobile phone is a multi-directional device a lot more
than the Internet in terms of permitting a two or multi-sided flow. However, it
is not the mobile phone or Internet that determines the nature of relations.
The determining factor is the structured nature of power relations and
interests. Two ways or multiple ways of a technological device cannot change
the nature of power relations and the nature of communication. The mobile phone
does not change the mode of relations between you and your boss, and does not
alter the fact that your boss is your boss. Democratic relations and freedom of
communication are impossible if any of the following determining factors are
missing, banned or exercised by only one side. It does not matter if you use the
Internet or the mobile phone or not, you are not free and your communication is
not symmetrical or democratic if you cannot:
(1) start or stop communication
(2) organize or influence the organization
of time, place and conditions of interaction
(3) fill, modify and change the content of
communication as you wish
(4) change or stop the nature of flow
during the interaction (for instance, change the subject)
(5) end the communication at any point
(6) exert influence on the objective and
outcome beyond being a mere participant
You can participate in every political
discussion on the Internet; such participation does not make a political system
a democratic system and such a
use does not mean that the Internet is an agent of democratisation, since you
cannot exert influence on the issues to be discussed, collective political decisions
to be taken, implementations to be taken and the benefits to be divided/shared.
The Internet is the most recent means of economical, political, mental,
emotional and behavioural control; a newly added and improved popular opium of the
people – especially of the young generation that is the most likely danger for
the system. In essence, it is the new sphere of domination, control and
struggle.
It is hard to find an Internet study that investigates
the ways in which structure and use of Internet technologies worsens social
inequities in terms of labour practices, distribution of wealth, and state surveillance
activities, opens new ways of domination and struggle. However, there are many
studies on the Internet’s role in participatory democracy, bottom-up political
forms (as if such forms were possible under the prevailing political
structures). Many of them are eulogies to activist groups, the democratic
underground, democratic and partisan public spheres. I must repeat that using
communications media does not mean that we have reached or that we are at the level
of participatory democracy. Participatory
democracy or empowerment does not mean “use or consume” in a specific manner.
Participating in consumption or use (including use for “writing, authorship”)
never means a democratic participation in daily life or empowerment as long as
we are kept out of the power structure, as long as we are unable to influence
the decision-making processes and ruling practices of the dominant forces.
Did anybody change his/or her wage or working conditions through the Internet? I
reiterate that the Internet is not a tool of emancipation, but a tool of
dominance and struggle. We now have an additional medium controlled by economic
and political interests. it is another contemporary field and means of struggle
against dominance that has dramatically increased opportunities to observe us
24 hours.
Recommendations
Recommendations are useful only for those, who are in the
habit of questioning himself/herself and anything and everything in life, and
have no affect on those who align their own interest with those who pay the pipers,
since they do not read articles like the present one. Those who read either are
supporters, sympathizers or concerned by the Marxist approach. Some read just
to know as much as possible. Some others read to collect information about the Marxist
enemy. In any case, my recommendations based on the current study and
accumulated knowledge are as follow:
Some
studies have serious theoretical conceptual and methodological problems. Those
who are not from the communication field, but conduct a study about
communication, should first read the fundamental texts in communication studies
beyond simple prescriptions of sender-message-channel-receiver-effect understandings
and similar misconceptions. Those, who have a communication background, should
either stay away from the popularized interest in cultural studies, discourse analysis,
reception analysis, semiotics and the like or firstly gain necessary knowledge
about, e.g., semiotics and methods in semiotics. Furthermore, it is part of academic
decency not to do any evaluation and ignore the most basic textual context such
as words like “in general”, the sentence before or after a sentence. I also
suggest that we should read the original sources if the issue is a person like
Marx, who has been widely distorted.
Some
studies have serious problems in choosing socially significant issues,
theory and method. This is mostly because of the prevailing nature of academia.
I suggest it is time to start to question the dominant orientations and to
study Marx’s theoretical and methodological approach in search of significant ways
for understanding the nature of communication in society and societal change. The
functionalist theoretical approaches and their current versions and their
explicit and implicit assumptions and outcomes for the organized human life and
environment have been well documented and their resonance can still be felt in
current communication scholarship. In light of this multifaceted dominance, a
basic advantage of Marx’s approach is that it provides a lot better theoretical
and methodological means and ways of social inquiry. At the same time, it leads
us to study socially significant issues with most meaningful manner by
including all probable contextual determinants in understanding the nature of production,
distribution and consumption of communication products,
control, subversion, coercion, domination and struggle.
Marx’s approach can enable a systematic
study of communication across multiple levels of relationships/interaction and
analyses, ranging from the individual to the global level. No approach has been
valid enough to be able to facilitate the study of prevailing conditions,
development and change. For instance, modernization/development studies based
on equilibrium, structural functionalist or behaviourist approaches and their
current versions do not only fall short in explanations, but also tend to
create mystifications and factoids about media and communication related
issues. Recent global crises also mean the crisis of prevailing dominant and
neo-dominant approaches in sociology, political science, economics and
communication. Hence, despite all the produced obstacles, Marx’s approach
remains the most viable approach to the study of any kind of communication,
especially mass communication.
Although there are studies that have generated
insightful theoretical, conceptual and practical explanations, there is still a
growing need for better understanding of Marx and his contributions to the
study of communication. Doing
so, studying from time to time the nature of research orientations in
Media and Communication Studies is an important and constructive academic
initiative. Scholarly discussions on the status of the field, its historical
development and its nature are a necessary outcome of such activity.
I believe that any initiative of Marxist
scholars in the publishing and tenure environment is a meaningful and important
contribution to Marxist Communication Studies and the communication field,
given that even the use of the name of Marx can result and has historically
often resulted in repression.
Prof. Irfan Erdogan
January 2002
.jpg)
No comments