29 - Smythe wants to start a debate that Western Marxists have focused solely on interpretive analysis (ideological) and have neglected economic and political significance in mass media systems
Smythe says that the notion that ideology holds capitalism together is too idealist (ex. watching content that embraces capitalism and commercials selling goods is not strong enough to hold capitalism together) (I suppose the hegemony is not powerful enough for Smythe)
What should be asked about mass comm systems is "what economic function for capital do they serve."
-attempt to understand their role in the reproduction of capitalist relations
30 - Western Marxists have failed to take a materialist approach to communication
-especially since advertising and marketing have become the principle economic policy of western media
what is the commodity produced in this capitalist system?
The Bourgeois idealist views is the messages: information, entertainment, manipulation
-held by Adorno, Baran & Sweezy, Schiller, Murdock, Golding
-McLuhan also idealist who look past this to focus on the medium of TV itself
31 - Materialist View is the audience
-all non-sleeping time is work time
-work time is devoted to the production of commodities
-time of audiences is sold to advertisers by mass media
workers (audience): 1. perform essential marketing functions for the producers of goods (manufacturers)
2. work at the production and reproduction of labor power
These two duties itegrate both, the superstructure and the base:
superstructure - product demand is produced and satisfied in purchases
base - work is sold by stations to advertisers
32 - process of "demand management" -begins and ends with the commodity market
Baran & Sweezy fail to analyze demand management via advertising in a materialist way;
they call it psychological manipulation, which is essentially hegemony (idealist view)
Smythe argues that advertisers buy audiences with predictable specifications (demographics) who will pay attention (attention economy) in predictable numbers
33 - To be sure, there are measurement companies, such as Nielsen
TV stations produce the commodity which advertisers buy; but so do families which permit advertising (and allow themselves to become commodities)
programming is the bribe or "free lunch" used to recruit audience members and maintain their attention
34 - central purpose is to ensure attention to products and services
Smythe mentions flow of audiences
The work that audiences do is to learn to buy certain brands of goods
Audiences "work to create the demand for advertised goods which is the purpose of the monopoly capitalist advertisers".... by doing this, audiences are reproducing their own labor power!
35 - labor power (creates the capacity to labor) and labor in productive use (creates a material commodity)
Marx - the principal aspect of capitalist production was the alienation of workers from the means of producing commodities
Smythe - today (1977) the principal aspect of capitalist production is the alienation of workers from the means of producing and reproducing themselves
Livant - it is a mistake to think that just because the laborer sells his/her labor power, it does not mean he/she produces it.
I suppose what is going on here is that the TV stations are capturing the labor power of audiences and selling it as a commodity to advertisers?
36 - Smythe assumes all "non-sleeping time under capitalism is work time." (for which I disagree - sleeping time is also work because you are reproducing your capacity to labor)
Livant - you must use (A) labor power to (B) create labor power to (C) labor.
(A) Labor power > personal possession, can't sell; off-work time > creates a commodity (labor power (B)) that the person does not sell but it is sold by a media company to advertisers
(B) create labor power > personal possession that can be sold; work-time > needed to labor
(C) Labor > act of creating a material good that the person does not sell (although the company does)
Mass media play a large role - guiding consumption & ideological teachings in shows and commercials
38 - Leisure time has increased 1850-1960, but more free time is dedicated to the consciousness industry's activities (marketing, shopping, etc)
Smythe is critical of Baran & Sweezy who use psychanalysis to call this "passively absorbable amusemement"
Smythe's two issues with Baran & Sweezy:
1. they ignore monopoly capitalism sales efforts
2. they prefer casual bourgeois observations (ideology embedded in messages) instead of historical materialism (study of economics, society, and history as proposed by Marx)
39 - the nature of workers' reaction to advertisers: (through demand management) Advertisers:
1. establish the existence of a problem facing the worker
2. establish the existence of a product commodity to solve said problem
3. motivation to choose a particular brand within that class of products
40 - with thousands of commodities, the audience lacks the objective skill to develop a rational shopping list out of this irrational situation
thus, the work done by audiences is used towards "impulse purchasing"
-reduced time, reduced research, commercial give quick insight (quasi-information), build brand loyalty, make purchase
Thus, the bourgeois notion of free time is only available to people with no disposable income & for those that are so wealthy that other people do their buying for them. For everyone else, "free time" in monopoly capitalism belongs to the same lexicon camp as "free market" "free speech" etc
The productive work of the audience is learning cues which are then used to make a shopping list to spend income
46 - to summarize: principal purpse of mass comm systems:
1. produce audiences who work at learning to consume goods & support demand management systems (which compel you to need a product)
2. produce audiences who theory and practice confirms monopoly capitalism ideologies
3. produce public opinion supportive of the state
4. operate profitably to ensure unrivaled respect within economic system
47 - consciousness industry through advertisements produce alienation for audiences:
1. alienation from result of work "on the job" which is a disconnect from the result of their labor power (commodity)
2. alienation from commodities which they are marketing to themselves
3. alienation from labor power they produce & reproduce in themselves (because it is sold by other parties like TV stations)
Showing posts with label adorno. Show all posts
Showing posts with label adorno. Show all posts
Sunday, February 15, 2015
McGuigan (2014) After Broadcast, what? An intro to the legacy of Smythe.
1 - Smythe first chief economist for the FCC 1943-48
debates about PE of media - Robert Babe traces PE to Harold Innis and Adorno
2- Jhally (1990 p. 73) & Babe (2000, p. 132-134) - Smythe exaggerates his materialist break from ideology, remaining focused on the mediation of consciousness.
2 - Industry practice - before radio, "trade journals touted the capacity of a commercial press to command the attention of valuable audiences (Marchand, 1985) and to manufacture consumer consciousness (Ewen, 1976). (brief history in reading follows)
3 - McGuigan argues that the first sentence of blindspot is to start a debate and that Smythe pioneered this debate of communication, capital, consciousness, and power relations
3 - materialist view: media institutions are both world-making and world-made. They tune consciousness (attention??) toward certain emphases (Turow 1997)
4 - audience commodity is dialectical - ad-supported media produce audiences as both economic & social-cultural products (Smythe, 1981, p. 13)
4 - Two markets - market of consumers (for sale to advertisers) and market for consumers (to buy advertisers products)
4 - Meehan (2005) - producing audiences is an organizing system that results in the empowerment of industrial capitalists, advertisers, market researchers, & audience surveillance firms that constrain certain ideas and values
These are anchored in cliches about consumers having agency in a free marketplace (Napoli, 1999). This favors consumers and commerce over citizens and community.
5 - It is important to understand the economic & social production of consumers. The lynchpin to this is alienation for Smythe, which is the denial of "free conscious activity" to him.
Our existence in consumer capitalism is mediated by discourse through and about objects (such as through TV and about the products being marketed).
6- Smythe did not favor textual analysis, but rather preferred a general appraisal - a totality of TV in general. (Sounds like part McLuhan - it's not what you watch, but rather that you watch TV.)
"Time spent watching television is time spent not doing something else (Smythe, 1977, 6-7).
Are our values cultivated from experiences with people or commodities? Smythe argued that we are alienated from the reproduction of ourselves because of commercial mediation in our culture.
Digtal Labor: Marxist & Institutional Approaches
8 - Marxist Approach: materialism for Smythe is "the actual processes which link people together in social production and social consumption." Thus, digital labor (such as social media) can be lnked to Capital Vol 1 - labor theory of value
However, this viewpoint is met with doubts from: Hesmondalgh, Caraway, Lebowitz, Magder:
Media cannot own audiences' labor power - which Mosco tends to agree (2009, p.137)
Institutional Approach: Meehan, Napoli
audiences are not naturally occurring - they are constructions that are commodified as ratings and do not exist objectively in media use. Audiences are produced as discrete packets of information
9 - Napoli (2011) - audience production is linked to the development of information technologies as well as the form & content of media messages
Institutional Approach is the counterpoint to the Marxist Approach.
However, problematic - if audiences cannot be owned, then how are they commoditized as discrete packages of information that exist only in market relations?
Can these two approaches be complementary? Smythe believes so and borrows from both. Also affirmed in Jhally, Meehan, Melody, Mosco, and Murdock.
Data & Digital Surveillance
Greg Elmer (2004) - studies a "personal information economy"
9-10 - Andrejevic (2004) - consumption becomes subject to scientific management techniques (Taylorism) previously honed for production
10 - McStay (2011) probes policies enabling inspection of data collected by ISPs
McGuigan goes on to include a complete lit review of other exemplary studies
10 - Andrejevic (2013) - data has commodity value but also feedback values as a predictor of behavior and proclivities (tendencies)
11 - Monopoly & Dependency Beyond Capitalist Core
Smythe viewed commercial media as monopoly capitalism - a handful of elites control global markets & set policy agendas ex. Nielsen, market consolidation (Microsoft, Intel)
12 - Neo-liberal imperatives colored policy debates - UNESCO forum on NWICO (Pickard 2007)
Advertising, Branding, and Commodification of Human Experience:
15 - TV remainds the "surest investment for marketers"
TV is an industry, a milieu of culture & citizenship, important field of social sciences & humanities research, interactive marketplace. Thus, Smythe's thesis is more germane than ever.
"Changes in technology are mutually constituted with the restructuring of media businesses" - to commercialize it & commodify it (such as data)
Critique of Technology
16 - Smythe wanted to temper celebratory thoughts about technological progress.
Mosco - 2004 - The Digital Sublime - he unravels celebratory mythologies of technological determinism
James Carey - 2009 - also covers these myths
16 - D. Schiller, Barney, Dyer-Witheford, all traingulate the historical, philosophical, and theorectical vectors of digital tech in capitalism.
17 - Turow - technology segments audiences for packaging to advertisers
-media convergence is the ad industry's efforts "to maximize the entire system's potential for selling" (p.2)
Critical & Administrative Research
18 - Smythe asserts that administrative research can be an important resource for critical theory and policy analysis (1983, p. 118-120).
example - trade publications provide insight into the relations between media players and advertisers.
debates about PE of media - Robert Babe traces PE to Harold Innis and Adorno
2- Jhally (1990 p. 73) & Babe (2000, p. 132-134) - Smythe exaggerates his materialist break from ideology, remaining focused on the mediation of consciousness.
2 - Industry practice - before radio, "trade journals touted the capacity of a commercial press to command the attention of valuable audiences (Marchand, 1985) and to manufacture consumer consciousness (Ewen, 1976). (brief history in reading follows)
3 - McGuigan argues that the first sentence of blindspot is to start a debate and that Smythe pioneered this debate of communication, capital, consciousness, and power relations
3 - materialist view: media institutions are both world-making and world-made. They tune consciousness (attention??) toward certain emphases (Turow 1997)
4 - audience commodity is dialectical - ad-supported media produce audiences as both economic & social-cultural products (Smythe, 1981, p. 13)
4 - Two markets - market of consumers (for sale to advertisers) and market for consumers (to buy advertisers products)
4 - Meehan (2005) - producing audiences is an organizing system that results in the empowerment of industrial capitalists, advertisers, market researchers, & audience surveillance firms that constrain certain ideas and values
These are anchored in cliches about consumers having agency in a free marketplace (Napoli, 1999). This favors consumers and commerce over citizens and community.
5 - It is important to understand the economic & social production of consumers. The lynchpin to this is alienation for Smythe, which is the denial of "free conscious activity" to him.
Our existence in consumer capitalism is mediated by discourse through and about objects (such as through TV and about the products being marketed).
6- Smythe did not favor textual analysis, but rather preferred a general appraisal - a totality of TV in general. (Sounds like part McLuhan - it's not what you watch, but rather that you watch TV.)
"Time spent watching television is time spent not doing something else (Smythe, 1977, 6-7).
Are our values cultivated from experiences with people or commodities? Smythe argued that we are alienated from the reproduction of ourselves because of commercial mediation in our culture.
Digtal Labor: Marxist & Institutional Approaches
8 - Marxist Approach: materialism for Smythe is "the actual processes which link people together in social production and social consumption." Thus, digital labor (such as social media) can be lnked to Capital Vol 1 - labor theory of value
However, this viewpoint is met with doubts from: Hesmondalgh, Caraway, Lebowitz, Magder:
Media cannot own audiences' labor power - which Mosco tends to agree (2009, p.137)
Institutional Approach: Meehan, Napoli
audiences are not naturally occurring - they are constructions that are commodified as ratings and do not exist objectively in media use. Audiences are produced as discrete packets of information
9 - Napoli (2011) - audience production is linked to the development of information technologies as well as the form & content of media messages
Institutional Approach is the counterpoint to the Marxist Approach.
However, problematic - if audiences cannot be owned, then how are they commoditized as discrete packages of information that exist only in market relations?
Can these two approaches be complementary? Smythe believes so and borrows from both. Also affirmed in Jhally, Meehan, Melody, Mosco, and Murdock.
Data & Digital Surveillance
Greg Elmer (2004) - studies a "personal information economy"
9-10 - Andrejevic (2004) - consumption becomes subject to scientific management techniques (Taylorism) previously honed for production
10 - McStay (2011) probes policies enabling inspection of data collected by ISPs
McGuigan goes on to include a complete lit review of other exemplary studies
10 - Andrejevic (2013) - data has commodity value but also feedback values as a predictor of behavior and proclivities (tendencies)
11 - Monopoly & Dependency Beyond Capitalist Core
Smythe viewed commercial media as monopoly capitalism - a handful of elites control global markets & set policy agendas ex. Nielsen, market consolidation (Microsoft, Intel)
12 - Neo-liberal imperatives colored policy debates - UNESCO forum on NWICO (Pickard 2007)
Advertising, Branding, and Commodification of Human Experience:
15 - TV remainds the "surest investment for marketers"
TV is an industry, a milieu of culture & citizenship, important field of social sciences & humanities research, interactive marketplace. Thus, Smythe's thesis is more germane than ever.
"Changes in technology are mutually constituted with the restructuring of media businesses" - to commercialize it & commodify it (such as data)
Critique of Technology
16 - Smythe wanted to temper celebratory thoughts about technological progress.
Mosco - 2004 - The Digital Sublime - he unravels celebratory mythologies of technological determinism
James Carey - 2009 - also covers these myths
16 - D. Schiller, Barney, Dyer-Witheford, all traingulate the historical, philosophical, and theorectical vectors of digital tech in capitalism.
17 - Turow - technology segments audiences for packaging to advertisers
-media convergence is the ad industry's efforts "to maximize the entire system's potential for selling" (p.2)
Critical & Administrative Research
18 - Smythe asserts that administrative research can be an important resource for critical theory and policy analysis (1983, p. 118-120).
example - trade publications provide insight into the relations between media players and advertisers.
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