[ICTs-and-Society] relation between political economy of the media and cultural studies

[Ekaterina Petrovna]

Another point: you mention, Jernej, in one of your posts, that 'we are
tired' of studies which try to make a link I was takling about (domination
and political economy, INCLUDING critical studies) and popular
culture...may I ask, who is tired exactly? If anything the article showing
the debate between Fuchs and Winseck (2011) clearly demonstrated that it is
what is needed at the current moment.
If anything the same can be said about critical studies and the resurgence
of Marx we are talking about. Present this view to any 'typical' Facebook
user and he will run away screaming.
i think, what is needed is that studies around such phenomenon as Facebook
become more accessible for a normal user...so that indeed they could become
'interested' in switching to alternatives. These kind of debates continue
for centuries, limited, so far, to a few enthusiastic scholars,

best regards,

Ekaterina Netchitailova

On Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 8:21 PM, Ekaterina Petrovna <epetrovna at gmail.com>wrote:

> Dear Jernej,
>
> can I use some of your observations in my thesis as quotes (and Michael as
> well)? You see i am stuggling myself with finding a right approach (but,
> it's what a PhD thesis should be about, shouldn't it be?). I started with
> celebratory studies (boyd and Jenkins, - which are hard to avoid when you
> start looking at facebook), then I stumbled upon works of Christian Fuchs
> and my focus changes drastically, as this was it: he saw facebook from a
> broader perspective, from a point that scholars studying the phenomenon
> didn't analyse till then (at least in researching online networks). i even
> tried to incorporate quotes of my participants in such a way so that
> facebook appears as evil...the capitalistic machine exploiting us and using
> our data.
> but the problem, of course, occurred at some point as i simply couldn't
> ignore my data and my own autoetnographical experience with Facebook. Yes,
> users do actually realise all these facts (that they are being
> monitored...the question is: by whom exactly? and that they work for free
> for Facebook), but as it emerges they don't mind...even so- called
> 'alternatives' who can be called as communists or the sort in offline life.
> In fact, they admit again and again that it's on Facebook that they
> organise raves, illegal parties and all sorts of protests. And users
> repeatedly say, - they don't mind being monitored as long as they are
> respected and can do what they want. This, of course, brings a question of
> what is privacy in the current age (see, latest article of Fuchs on the
> subject) and also who monitors whom? Users on facebook in the majority of
> cases monitor themselves and other users...
> Also, Facebook fulfills many other functions: community, friendship,
> celebrity culture...yes, Wikipedia is a wonderful thing, but Facebook got
> into a totally different market/niche, - which would be hard to compete
> with.
> But you never know, of course, you never know...
> Just to make a final point about my data is that: people really like
> facebook, including University professors and sceptics. of course, my data
> is only 25 face-to-face interviews...but it is underpinned by some other
> studies in the field.
> Ekaterina Netchitailova
> On Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 7:26 PM, Jernej Prodnik <
> jernej.prodnik at fdv.uni-lj.si> wrote:
>
>>  Andrew, I think most strands of Marxism never neglected questions of
>> resistance by subjectivities or the possibilities for (counter)power
>> produced by social movements (i.e., they never neglected subjective aspects
>> or considered people as being passive dopes, if anything, they could be
>> seen as too idealist at times), which is nevertheless not a subject matter
>> of critique of political economy as such, or is it? I’m not sure it is. I
>> feel critique of pol-econ basically gives progressive movements one of its
>> key weapons for resistance, but that’s about it, it doesn’t provide
>> organizational prescriptions or really set up any specific goals (unless
>> seriously paired with critical political theory). This doesn’t mean they
>> can’t be inspired by Marxism of course. Unless you’re a stringent
>> dialectical materialist in a Stalin’s mould, and I don’t think there’s many
>> left, you can’t really overlook agency in a broader perspective of how
>> changes in society occur and how to look at society as such. Autonomist
>> (and/or (post)operaist) Marxism have been perhaps most exceptional in these
>> accounts since the seventies, focusing especially on the role of subjects
>> in the production process and how resistance can be set about. Lately it
>> was especially Negri’s and Hardt’s trilogy (Empire, Multitude, and
>> Commowealth) that focused exactly on the questions of agency and resistance
>> of the multitude. They are all remain materialists though :)****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> Why would users leave Facebook? Well, I don’t know, but if they feel like
>> they have to protest against Facebook on the Facebook itself, I’m not sure
>> they’re doing it the right way :) It’s up to the users to decide what to do
>> and I fully understand it would be a very difficult decision to leave
>> (social exclusion, inter-personal pressures and so on). But you just have
>> to ask yourself whether you prefer a model worked on by Wikipedia or the
>> one favored by Facebook? The latter is grounded in surveillance over its
>> users, invading their privacy, and selling their private information to the
>> third-parties, it’s using quite suppressive techniques of control and
>> monitoring. It’s probably a no-brainer looking from this perspective, but
>> taking any another one would probably make it all more difficult to leave.
>> And while economically both approaches are in fact sustained by free-work
>> of their users, Facebook hugely profits from this, while Wikipedia has
>> built one of the most amazing knowledge-databases in the world that is
>> available to everyone, demanding nothing in return (sustaining itself
>> through contributions). It’s also a question whether one wants to be
>> included in decision-making process when it comes to the platform he’s
>> basically sustaining with his work - there are some options to influence
>> decisions on different levels on Wikipedia, but almost none on commercial
>> platforms.****
>>
>> It’s quite depressing however, when you see Google’s yearly profits are
>> somewhere on the level of the whole tax income of Republic of Slovenia (a
>> silly example, but still), latter being just another in the long line of
>> countries going through painful austerity measures recently, while Google
>> formally employs around thirty thousand people (and at the same time you
>> read how a near 30% rise in revenues last year failed to impress Google’s
>> investors;)). ****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> Best,****
>>
>> Jernej****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> *From:* Ekaterina Petrovna [mailto:epetrovna at gmail.com]
>> *Sent:* Monday, February 13, 2012 7:11 PM
>> *To:* Jernej Prodnik
>>
>> *Cc:* discussion at lists.icts-and-society.net
>> *Subject:* Re: [ICTs-and-Society] relation between political economy of
>> the media and cultural studies****
>>
>>  ** **
>>
>> That's a very good point actually,as the analysis from the perspective of
>> political economy does not preclude the micro-analysis and actually any
>> good study of the media today should focus on the political economy aspect.
>> My point was that there seems to be a great division today between critical
>> approach: focussing on exploitation mostly and 'celebratory cultural
>> studies'. My point was that both pluses and minuses have to be taken into
>> account, both macro and micro and the analysis of popular culture (again I
>> refer to works of Fiske) seems to me to be a good example where there is a
>> serious analysis of the critique of exploitation and the response of
>> ordinary people to this exploitation. I quote Fiske:****
>>
>> "Until recently, the study of popular culture has taken two main
>> directions. The less productive has been that which has celebrated popular
>> culture without situating it in a model of power....The other direction has
>> been to situate popular culture firmly withing a model of power, but to
>> emphasise so strongly the forces of domination as to make it  appear
>> impossible for a genuine popular culture to exist at all...Recently,
>> however, a third direction has begun to emerge...It, too, sees popular
>> culture as a site of struggle, but, while accepting the power of the forces
>> of dominance, it focusses rather upon the popular tactics by which these
>> forces are coped with, are evaded or are resisted." (Fiske, 1989, p. 20)*
>> ***
>>
>> My point was that we should maybe look more into this third direction.
>> Looking at facebook's users as passive dopes misses an important fact about
>> Facebook: it does do something in our lives, people love it (in their
>> majority) and while it is a capitalistic organization, it actually did
>> start as project in a student dormitory...Why, in fact, would people do a
>> massive exodus to something else? Why? And how alternative mediums would
>> sustain themselves?****
>>
>>  ****
>>
>> Thank you for the reference to the book about surveillance, - i will
>> certainly read it!****
>>
>>  ****
>>
>> Ekaterina Netchitailova****
>>
>> On Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 2:18 PM, Jernej Prodnik <
>> jernej.prodnik at fdv.uni-lj.si> wrote:****
>>
>> Hi,****
>>
>>  ****
>>
>> just a short observation: both exploitation and commodification actually
>> have little do to with playfulness or having fun on the Facebook or Twitter
>> (or anywhere else, where these processes might occur). It’s not what
>> political economy analyzes and it’s actually not that important question,
>> because it’s simply not its subject matter. Which doesn’t mean it’s not
>> important. This is a common misunderstanding that has been retained in
>> cultural studies for decades now, for reasons unknown to me. But I guess it
>> stems from another misunderstanding - of what is actually the goal of
>> critique of political economy. It's definitely not to transparently
>> moralize about an ongoing world-situation and corruption of the ugly
>> capitalists (focusing on bad apples in an otherwise perfectly working
>> system is, quite on the contrary, approach of the non-critical economy),
>> but to try to give an explanation of an objective fact through means of
>> abstraction (even if this can, indeed, be fundamental ground for people's
>> moral outlook and political action, which was of course the underlying goal
>> of Marx). Abstraction in the given example meaning: if the system were in
>> fact to function perfectly, would capitalists still need exploitation? Of
>> course, how else would they extract surplus value? Both concepts,
>> exploitation and commodification, are therefore quite “technical” and don’t
>> focus on the good and the bad (... historically, conditions in the
>> production process were of course terrible, but Marx could’ve easily
>> omitted these examples  there are plenty - from Capital and the argument in
>> the abstract would be no different).****
>>
>>  ****
>>
>> These are quite different levels of critique you’re mentioning, with
>> different epistemological presuppositions, and there weren’t so many
>> authors that would successfully bridge this divide (Vincent Mosco in his
>> Digital Sublime being one of the celebrated exceptions). There has been a
>> huge debate in the nineties regarding these questions and I guess most of
>> the people, participating in it, simply got tired of it. But cultural
>> studies and political economy are not necessarily differentiated when it
>> comes to the macro/micro questions ... Neither commodification nor
>> exploitation are for example ‘macro questions’, they develop and happen in
>> everyday-life situations that actually need to be analyzed on the
>> micro-level, at least in the beginning, to construct a viable macro-theory
>> (besides, why joyful exploitation so easily occurs could be critically
>> analyzed on another, ideological level).****
>>
>>  ****
>>
>> So, to put it shortly: people can be exploited in the production process
>> even if they crazily enjoy what they’re doing at the same time. Neither of
>> these processes preclude people from rejecting these processes if they find
>> them worth struggling against  - for example through making fun out of
>> Facebook in different Facebook groups. How effective the latter is should
>> be quite obvious though: it’s not. To put it in Marx’s terms: they’re just
>> writing about Facebook, but the point should be to change it (if these
>> people are so “critical” about it). And the only way to stop exploitation
>> by Facebook is probably a mass exodus from the Facebook to another platform
>> or to give as little information to FB as possible. Making fun of Facebook
>> in groups can actually even increase passivity and be quite cynical.****
>>
>>  ****
>>
>> I’m just finishing my review of the volume “Surveillance on the
>> Internet”, which includes some very good chapters from the perspective of
>> critique of political economy. You might find it interesting, especially
>> considering the fact these chapters mostly focus on the micro-level to
>> demonstrate how exploitation is carried out on social networks (mostly
>> through surveillance and data mining).****
>>
>>  ****
>>
>> Michael, I guess you’re not talking about Marxist understanding of
>> materialism in this case?****
>>
>>  ****
>>
>> Best,****
>>
>>  ****
>>
>>  ****
>>
>> *From:* discussion-bounces at lists.icts-and-society.net [mailto:
>> discussion-bounces at lists.icts-and-society.net] *On Behalf Of *Ekaterina
>> Petrovna
>> *Sent:* Monday, February 13, 2012 1:45 PM
>> *To:* Goddard Michael
>> *Cc:* discussion at lists.icts-and-society.net
>> *Subject:* Re: [ICTs-and-Society] relation between political economy of
>> the media and cultural studies****
>>
>>  ****
>>
>> Hello,****
>>
>>  ****
>>
>> why Fiske would not be appropriate? While it is somewhat outdated, he
>> gave an excellent oveview, I think, of the relationship between domination
>> (and culture industries used for the purposes of indoctrination and
>> domination) and popular culture, where people engage in making culture
>> industries 'their own'. Engaging in a playful way on Facebook can be seen
>> as an art of making everyday life, and some instances of trickery on
>> Facebook (like numerous pictures making fun of Facebook as corporation) are
>> an example of excorporation (Fiske, 1989). The main point is that while
>> political economy of the media is very important, how users use the media
>> in everyday life and what they think of it, should also be taken into
>> account. The problem with engaging only with critical approach and
>> political economy of the media is that the focus becomes too much on the
>> macro, ignoring the micro...Boyd's studies (2008, 2010), on the other hand,
>> focus, for instance, only on the user, ignoring totally the aspect of the
>> bigger picture (as David Beer rightly pointed out in one of his articles in
>> 2008), - shouldn't we try to go somewhere in the middle?****
>>
>>  ****
>>
>> I am not familiar, I have to admit, with materialist approaches towards
>> the media, - could you, please, Michael, give me some examples?****
>>
>>  ****
>>
>> best regards,****
>>
>> Ekaterina Netchitailova (PhD student at Sheffield Hallam)****
>>
>> On Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 10:21 AM, Goddard Michael <
>> M.N.Goddard at salford.ac.uk> wrote:****
>>
>> Hello, ****
>>
>>  ****
>>
>> While in agreement with Ekaterina that a diversity of approaches,
>> addressing ICTs and their users on a number of scales, is desirable, I
>> would question whether 1980s cultural studies, especially in the work of
>> Fiske is the best resource for this diversity (Stuart Hall is a somewhat
>> different case since he actually engaged with information theory in such as
>> a way as to leave something salvageable for thinking ICTs at Matt Fuller
>> has argued).****
>>
>>  ****
>>
>> Other productive lines of inquiry might include materialist media
>> theories/media archaeology, which while depoliticising in some instances,
>> nevertheless provides useful resources for a materialist account of media,
>> media ecological approaches of the post-Guattarian/Matt Fuller variety at
>> least, that go well beyond concerns with e-waste to engage with how
>> specific media generate and interact with a variety of milieux or, on a
>> more pragmatic level some of the approaches developed in the recent *Transgression
>> 2.0 *collection which to engage with network phenomena like the use of
>> social media during the Arab Spring but also problematise easy assumptions
>> about what this means.......interventions that in some cases might be
>> understood as continuing the perspecitves of autonomous Marxism and to
>> strongly critique the more normative Frankfurt School version of Marxist
>> cultural critique that still seems dominant in many political economy
>> approaches.....just a few suggestions for pre-conference  discussion,****
>>
>>  ****
>>
>> Michael Goddard****
>>
>>  ****
>>
>> Dr Michael N Goddard ****
>>
>> Lecturer in Media Studies****
>>
>> School of Media, Music and Performance****
>>
>> University of Salford****
>>
>> MediaCityUk****
>>
>> Salford****
>>
>> M50 2HE****
>>
>> UK****
>>
>>  ****
>>
>> Reviews editor of *Studies in Eastern European Cinema* (SEEC)****
>>
>> Co-Editor of *Reverberations: Noise, Affect, Politics, *Continuum, 2012**
>> **
>>
>>  ****
>>    ------------------------------
>>
>> *From:* discussion-bounces at lists.icts-and-society.net [
>> discussion-bounces at lists.icts-and-society.net] on behalf of Ekaterina
>> Petrovna [epetrovna at gmail.com]
>> *Sent:* 12 February 2012 21:21
>> *To:* discussion at lists.icts-and-society.net
>> *Subject:* [ICTs-and-Society] relation between political economy of the
>> media and cultural studies****
>>
>> Hello,****
>>
>> by looking at the abstracts for the conference in May in Uppsala, I see
>> that the main focus so far is on the political economyc of media (or
>> critical studies of media), which is actually the topic of the conference,
>> but shouldn't we also look at the theme of the relationship between the
>> political economy of media (more, macro-context from studies so far) and
>> cultural studies (so, far, as Christian Fuchs rightly points out it has
>> been more 'celebratory cultural studies of media" (2011). However, by
>> focusing on both macro and micro at the same time and by incorporating such
>> works as John Fiske (1989), maybe we could have a new perspective on media
>> studies today? Fuchs (2008, 2010, 2011) proposes abolishment of capitalism
>> (quite an old proposition) or searching for alternative media. The
>> question, however, is:  would the users of Facebook actually switch to
>> anything else (the answer is no...at least from my ethnographic studies)
>> and shouldn't we look at facebook itself for these kind of alternatives?
>> After all, recent examples (Arab Spring) show that facebook can be used
>> effectively for organising popular protests, - could Facebook be used for a
>> good cause also in other cases? And another question: by abolishing
>> capitalism, - which society do you envision? ****
>>
>>  ****
>>
>> Graham Murdock says:  "where users labour in their leisure time to boost
>> corporate profits" (from paper abstract, 2012) by looking at the use of
>> digital media. If we focus only on this perspective, aren't we in danger of
>> missing an important part of popular culture, as elaborated by John Fiske
>> (1989) and many others (Stuart Hall, etc)? The problem with focusing only
>> on marco context is that we can totally misunderstand the perspective of
>> the user (something which Christian Fuchs discussed in one of the articles
>> with Dwayne Winseck (2011). Users don't consider that they work for free
>> for facebook when they use it, - if anything they have fun and engage in
>> many ways in 'trickering' Facebook (by organising many groups either
>> against Facebook or by making fun of it, on Facebook itself). Also what
>> about the fact that many users use Facebook actually at work (it was banned
>> as a result in many workplaces, but the application to use facebook through
>> phones, somehow, overpassed this problem)? Isn't in some way a kind of
>> sabotage to capitalism in a trickery sort of way?****
>>
>>  ****
>>
>> Ekaterina Netchitailova (PhD student at Sheffield Hallam)****
>>
>>
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