Communication, crisis and control: Economies, ecologies and technologies of digital times

Up until recently media analysis has paid little attention to their material bases in assemblies of machines and infrastructures and global chains of labour. This is now changing. The multiplication of always/on, always/there, tablets and smart phones has coincided with accelerating climate change and greater awareness of the globalisation of economic activity. To properly understand how these processes are interrelated two essential conditions need to be met. Firstly, we need to locate ‘new’ media in historical perspective and examine the ways communication has been shaped by cumulative economic, ecological and political processes set in motion by the rise of modern capitalism. Secondly, we need to explore how these dynamics have been reproduced and intensifi ed with the return of market fundamentalism from the mid-1970s onwards. Having sketched this context, the paper goes on to the detail how the leading digital companies have played a central role in the restoration of profi tability and have exploited the increased degrees of corporate freedom introduced by global marketization to dominate their spheres of infl uence developing organisational forms and operational practices that are creating digital despotisms that are coming more and more to resemble medieval city states

Los agujeros negros del marxismo occidental: Respuesta a Dallas Smythe

After the publication of Dallas Smythe paper about the blindspots about Western Marxism in the Canadian Journal of Political and Social Theory (vol. 2, n.º 3, autumn 1977), Graham Murdock answers in this text to these ideas. He shares with Smythe his perspective of putting again economy in the center of Marxist cultural analysis, but he exposes a series of critical ideas. Murdock reflects about considering the North-American situation as paradigmatic, and focuses on showing the differences between the situation in North-America and Europe. These differences are expressed in the interests and objectives of Marxists theories developed in Europe. Murdock accuses Smythe of underestimating the importance and centrality of the state in contemporary capitalism, of underplaying the independent role of mass media content in reproducing dominant ideologies and of presenting the operations of mass communications system in society as relatively smooth and unproblematic.Tras la publicación en el vol. 1, n.º 3 del Canadian Journal of Political and Social Theory (otoño de 1977) del artículo de Dallas Smythe sobre los agujeros negros del marxismo occidental, Gram. Mudock elabora en este texto una respuesta a estas ideas. Si bien compartiendo su perspectiva de que hay que devolver a la economía al centro del análisis cultural del marxismo, aborda una serie de críticas. Para ello parte del problema de considerar la situación norteamericana como paradigmática, y se centra en poner de manifiesto sus diferencias con la situación europea. Éstas se reflejan en el énfasis y preocupaciones de las teorizaciones marxistas desarrolladas en Europa. Murdock acusa a Smythe de subestimar la importancia y centralidad del Estado en el capitalismo contemporáneo, de minusvalorar la función independiente del contenido de los medios a la hora de reproducir las ideologías dominantes y de presentar la evolución del sistema de los medios de comunicación de masas en la sociedad como falto de problemáticas concretas

Refeudalisation revisited: The destruction of deliberative democracy

Donald Trump’s election as American President and the successful referendum campaign to exit the EU in Britain have prompted renewed interest in the challenges posed to deliberative democracy by right-wing populism. This paper returns to the research on authoritarianism developed by the Frankfurt School in Germany and the United States, and particularly to their emphasis on the performative construction of appeals, and to Jurgen Habermas’s later characterisation of the translation of citizens into spectating subjects as a refeudalisation of the public sphere, and argues that these analyses continue to provide indispensable resources for understanding contemporary developments

Mediatisation and the transformation of capitalism: The elephant in the room

© 2017 EURICOM. Recent years have seen the idea of mediatisation promoted as a unifying concept capable of overcoming the increasing specialisation and fragmentation of communication research and addressing the increasing ubiquity and centrality of media across all areas of institutional and intimate life. Advocates present it as media centred but not media centric, arguing for inquiry that explores the interconnections between innovations in media and wider social and cultural change. While shifts in the organisation of economic activity are referenced, mediatisation research has not so far developed a comprehensive analysis of the central role played by the resurgence of market fundamentalist models of capitalism in reorganising the relations between media and social and cultural life it seeks to address. Through a close reading of key writings on mediatisation, this article demonstrates the necessity of integrating a critical political economy into its core project

Political economy and media production: a reply to Dwyer

© The Author(s) 2016.This is a response to an article by Paul Dwyer in this Journal which makes several claims about the nature and impact of the political economy approach to the analysis of media and communications. We argue that Dwyer’s article misunderstands or is unaware of the history of this approach, and quite fundamentally misconstrues its central tenets. Our response explains how, in capitalist societies, media organisations are integrated into general processes of accumulation, how they exercise power, and how their strategies shape the communications landscape. We explain how the critical political economy approach actually works and illustrate how it has been deployed for concrete analysis in ways that Dwyer seems unaware of. Analysis of shifts in the organisation of capitalism and of their consequences for the structure of cultural production is essential alongside detailed research into how shifting webs of pressure and opportunity impinge on the everyday business of crafting cultural goods in specific cultural industries. We argue that, contra Dwyer, contemporary analysis has a rich legacy of work in both areas on which to build

The birth of distance: communications and changing conceptions of elsewhere

The birth of distance: communications and changing conceptions of elsewher

Refeudalização revisitada: a destruição da democracia deliberativa

Donald Trump’s election as American President and the successful referendum campaign to exit the European Union in Britain have prompted renewed interest in the challenges posed to deliberative democracy by right-wing populism. This paper returns to the research on authoritarianism developed by the Frankfurt School in Germany and the United States, particularly to their emphasis on the performative construction of appeals, and to Jürgen Habermas’ later characterisation of the translation of citizens into spectating subjects as a refeudalisation of the public sphere, and argues that these analyses continue to provide indispensable resources for understanding contemporary developments.A eleição de Donald Trump como presidente dos Estados Unidos e a bem-sucedida campanha do referendo para saída da União Europeia no Reino Unido provocaram um interesse renovado nos desafios impostos à democracia deliberativa pelo populismo de direita. Este artigo retorna à pesquisa sobre o autoritarismo desenvolvida pela Escola de Frankfurt, na Alemanha e nos Estados Unidos, particularmente à sua ênfase na construção performativa de apelos e à posterior caracterização de Jürgen Habermas da translação dos cidadãos em sujeitos de audiência como uma refeudalização da esfera pública, argumentando que essas análises continuam a fornecer recursos indispensáveis para a compreensão dos desenvolvimentos contemporâneos

Contemporary communication and questions of social class

Durante muitos anos, os estudos de mídia e comunicação partilhavam de um conceito comum a outras áreas do conhecimento: o conceito de classe social. Aos poucos, este conceito foi substituído por outros que buscavam destacar não as invariâncias, mas as singularidades entre grupos sociais em conflito. Os rígidos contornos verticais da classe deram lugar aos horizontes abertos da diferença. É hora de inverter esta percepção e insistir que sob a praia jazem as pedras do calçamento. A classe pode ter sido abolida retoricamente em muitos textos, mas uma quantidade impressionante de evidência empírica confirma que ela permanece como uma força essencial para modelar a maneira como vivemos hoje.During many years, media and communication studies shared a common conception with other knowledge fields: the conception of social class. Little by little, this conception was replaced by others that looked for standing out not the invariances, but the singularities between social groups in conflict. The strict vertical outlines of the social class gave place to the horizons opened by the difference. It is time to reverse this perception and insist on the idea that beneath the beach are the graves of pavement rocks. The social class could be rhetorically abolished from many texts, but the impressive amount of empirical evidence confirms that it remains as an essential force to model how we live today

Continental shifts: capitalism, communications and change in Europe

This article puts forward the fundamental lines of thought on the Political Economy of Communications and the Media, since the development of capitalism up to the present day. Clarifying the distinction between Economy and Political Economy, this work examines the central split between two traditions within Political Economy: the Classic approach which is centred on markets and competition mechanisms and the Critical approach which is centred on the analysis of property and the distribution of power in society. Despite internal distinct traditions, for political economists’ questions about cultural production and consumption are never simply matters of economic organisation or creative expression and the relations between them. They are always also questions about the organisation of power and its consequences for the constitution of public life. Based on different Political Economy perspectives, this article attempts to present the most recent developments on communications and media markets in Europe and the major challenges and opportunities the discipline faces in a time marked by the emergence of a digital public sphere

Critical Political Economy of Culture and Communication: An Interview with Graham Murdock

This paper presents an interview with Graham Murdock. It was conducted by Thomas Allmer and Christian Fuchs for tripleC. In it, Graham Murdock reflects on the field of Critical Political Economy of Culture and Communication, his contributions to and work in this field of studies, the role of Karl Marx in this field, Stuart Hall, Critical Political Economy and Cultural Studies, Raymond Williams, the climate crisis and the environmental movement, Materialism, New Materialisms, Postmodernism, Pierre Bourdieu, the future of society, culture, and the media. The topics the interview covers are structured into three parts: 1. Critical Political Economy, 2. Critical Political Economy and Cultural Studies, 3. Questions of Materialism