SOCIAL WEB MEDIA
CONSTITUENTS OF A THEORY
OF THE MEDIA
HANS MAGNUS ENZENSBERGER 1970
AL LARSEN
SPRING 2010
Page numbers refer to the essay as published
in The New Media Reader.
Enzensberger – b 1929
German
poet
critic
etc.
Marxist perspective
base & superstructure
SUPERSTRUCTURE
BASE
“The base
is traditionally said to consist of the
forces and relations of production. [...] The
superstructure is traditionally said to be made
up of things like political systems, religion –
and the media.”
introduction Wardrip-Fruin / Montfort
(Habermas's
discussion of the
bourgeois public sphere
arising in the 18th Century)
CULTURE
-------------PRODUCTION
CULTURE
-------------PRODUCTION
QUESTION: relationship between:
changes in the last 50 years in the image of a
“normal” family
-------------changes in workplace demands
THE MEDIA BUSINESS
“THE CONSCIOUSNESS
INDUSTRY”
WHAT DOES IT PRODUCE?
HOW?
Everett Collection/Rex Features
image: Life
“Constituents of a Theory of the Media”
Electronic media circa 1970
new satellites
cable tv
cassettes
videotape
videotape recorders
photocopy machines
timesharing computers
Emancipatory potential of the
electronic media.
Emancipatory potential of the
electronic media.
Sees this potential as being held back because
it is politically threatening.
Emancipatory?
see p. 261
“The Mobilizing Power of the Media”
“The Mobilizing Power of the Media”
(p 261)
mobility
freedom
p. 261
“Anyone who thinks of the masses
only as the object of politics cannot mobilize them. He
wants to push them around. A parcel is not mobile; it can
only be pushed to and fro. Marches, columns, parades,
immobilize people. Propaganda, which does not release selfreliance but limits it, fits into the same pattern. It leads to
depoliticization.”
For Enzensberger the potential lies in
participation.
For Enzensberger the potential lies in
participation.
“For the first time in history the, the media are
making possible mass participation in a social
and socialized productive process...”
(p 262)
For Enzensberger the potential lies in
participation.
“For the first time in history the, the media are
making possible mass participation in a social
and socialized productive process, the
practical means of which are in the hands of
the masses themselves.”
(p 262)
“In its present form, equipment like television
or film does not serve communication but
prevents it.”
(p 262)
IMAGE
“circuit reversal”
“REFLECTIVE OF A
SOCIAL DIVISON
BETWEEN PRODUCERS
AND CONSUMERS”
PRODUCERS / CONSUMERS
RULERS / RULED
image: buycostumes.com
ABC / CBS / NBC
REPUBLICANS / DEMOCRATS
ABC / CBS / NBC
REPUBLICANS / DEMOCRATS
“In both cases marginal differences in their
platforms reflect a competitive relationship
which on essential questions is nonexistent.”
(p 262)
“Minimal independent activity on the part of
the voter/viewer is desired.”
(p 262)
“Societies in the late industrial age rely on the
free exchange of information...”
“Quarantine regulations for information, such
as were promulgated by fascism and
Stalinism, are only possible today at the cost
of deliberate industrial regression.”
(p 262 - 263)
Wikipedia Image:
“The Rhodesia Herald of 21
September 1966 shows the
effect of censorship imposed
by Van der Byl's ministry.”
“The Soviet bureaucracy [...] has to deny itself
almost entirely an elementary piece of
organizational equipment, the duplicating
machine...”
TOPICS TO COME BACK TO:
Filtered Internet (China, others)
Facebook as described in NY Times article
“cute cat theory of digital activism”
MEDIA
MANIPULATION
image: adbusters.org
For Enzensberger all media productions are
manipulative...
For Enzensberger all media productions are
manipulative...
it's largely a problem of the limitations on who
gets to do the manipulating.
“The question is therefore not whether the
media are manipulated, but who manipulates
them. A revolutionary plan should not require
the manipulators to disappear; on the contrary
it must make everyone a manipulator.”
(p 265)
“The contradiction between producers and
consumers is not inherent in the electronic
media; on the contrary it has to be artificially
reinforced by economic and administrative
measures.”
(p 266)
Radio telephony (many-to-many media)
is technically achieveable but lacking in
licensed bandwidth (1970)
Broadcast television (centralized media)
is given more spectrum.
(p 266)
Screenshot: zyra.org
https://microphones.audiolinks.com/Articles/images/MicDia
gram2B.jpg
Implications?
ISOLATED USE OF MEDIA:
HOBBYIST / TINKERER
HOME USE
ISOLATED USE OF MEDIA:
HOME MOVIES
HAM RADIO
QSL CARD
(CONFIRMATION OF RECEIVING
TRANSMISSION)
“...the individal, so long as he remains
isolated, can become [...] at best an amateur
but not a producer.”
(p 266)
“Any socialist strategy for the media must, on
the contrary, strive to end the isolation of the
individual participants from the social learning
and production process.”
(p 267)
Think in terms of the “SOCIAL”
AUDIENCE...
COMMUNITY...
PARTICIPATION...
By what standards is the work of
the amateur judged?
“The poor, feeble, and frequecntly humiliating
results of this licensed activity are often
referred to with contempt by the professional
media producers.”
LO-FI
AESTHETICS?
EMANCIPATION?
HOW?
organized
not just transmitting and receiving
Cameras, recorders,
in the workplace, school, etc.
“...everywhere where there is social conflict.”
“...a mass newspaper,
written and distributed by its readers,
a video network of
politically active groups.”
(p 267)
Indymedia
open publishing
collectively-produced alternative journalism
Indymedia
started:
1999 – Anti-WTO Protests in Seattle
local sites / collectives all around the world
COPWATCH
1991
Police abuse of Rodney King caught on
videotape by
George Holiday
(Police officers acquitted)