Marxist analysis Capitalism Consequences Massive and unprecedented increase

Marxist analysis

Capitalism

Consequences �Massive and unprecedented increase in wealth. �Great increase of the world population and health benefits �Development of science, culture and education 4

Capitalism in relation to. . . �Liberty (vs. Exploitation) �Equality (vs. Inequality)

Karl Marx (1818 -1883) � Mixture of Hegelian dialectics and British economics � Searching for a rational formula to explain the evolution of a mankind � Materialist conception of history: The world develops according to a dialectical formula; the motive force for this development is the matter and man’s relation to matter, of which the most important part is the mode of production.

� History is the history of class struggles between bourgeoisie and proletariat. � Social and economic arrangements in a given time of history are created by people and can be changed by people. � Bourgeoisie avoids class conflict by indoctrinating proletariat with ruling-class ideas, and by presenting them as natural, universal, not historical.

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, consequently also controls the means of mental production, so that the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are on the whole subject to it. (Marx)

Ideology Ø From „science of ideas” to a „system” - dominant values, ideas and representations in a given social order Ø The image a society gives of itself in order to perpetuate itself Ø It naturalizes and legitimizes the existing society and its institutions and values (normativity and ‘false consciousness’) Ø Uses the fabricated images and representation to persuade us that how things are is how they should be Ø It limits us to certain places or positions within the processes of communication and exchange

Ideology and subjectivity � Louis Althusser (1969): ideologies recruit, ‘interpellate’, subjects among individuals or they transform the latter into subjects � Ideological State Apparatuses: a certain number of realities which present themselves in the form of distinct and specializcd institutions such as religion, education or communications.

Gramsci’s ‘hegemony’: ideology as a common sense � The power to win and shape consent. � A mixture of political, economic and cultural forces that transcends both culture and ideology. � Works through ideology, but does not consist of false ideas, perceptions or definitions. � Works by inserting the subordinate class into the key institutions and structures

Alienation and consumption � Capitalism produces strangers who suffer from false consciousness � Alienation leads to production of needs and ultimately to consumption. � Consumption, including the media, is a form of escape from alienation.

� Commodity-self (Stuart Ewen): the idea that our subjectivities are constructed in part through our consumption and use of commodities. � Commodity fetishism: the process by which massproduced goods are emptied of the meaning of their production and filled with new meanings in ways that both mystify the product and turn it into a fetish object. � The fetishization of commodities refers to the objectification of social relations of production into relationships between things.

Culture industries � Art losing its aura – ‘mechanical reproduction’ and the danger of ‘fake aura’ (W. Benjamin, 1936) � Standardization & reification of culture (Adorno&Horkheimer 1972, George Lukacs 1923) � D. Smythe (1977): the crucial function of the mass media is not to sell packages of ideology to consumers, but audiences to advertisers

Other concepts within the critical Marxism a) Propaganda model (E. Herman&N. Chomsky) ü a socializing, integrating and educating role of the media requires a systematic control and propaganda which is practised through the limits of critique and inequality of power and resources ü five filters: 1) size, ownership and profit orientation of the mass media; 2) advertising as a primary income source; 3) sourcing mass media news; 4) flak (=criticism, reprimand) as a means of disciplining the media; 5) anticommunism as a control mechanism b) Cultural imperialism ü H. Schiller (1969): the role of media in mobilizing international support for U. S. global domination and the transnational corporate order; empire-building through the marriage of ‘economics and electronics’

Marxist analysis Social, political and economic context of the media � Ownership, control, operation of the media � Roles and functions played by the media and popular artwork � � What ideas and values are spread and which are neglected – reasons? � How the conditions of power affect individual creativity. � BREAK UP WITH AND STAND OUTSIDE IDEOLOGY