[ICTs-and-Society] What is Critical Media and Communcation Studies Today?

[Christian Fuchs]

Very interesting points made by Astrid.

I think it brings up the question about strategies of how to organise 
struggles: inside existing institutions against those institutions (what 
if they corrupt you and you become too much absorbed by them and their 
logic? how to stay autonomous from the dominant logic?) and/or outside 
those institutions building alternatives that question dominant 
institutions and practice alternatives (what if you end up in 
self-exploitative voluntary labour and without resources that you need 
for transformations?)...

Just a short quote on this topic by Marcuse, which does not mean that I 
fully share what he says, but I think he describes the problem well:

He called for "working against the established institutions, while 
working in them, but not simply by ‘boring from within,’ rather by 
‘doing the job,’ learning (how to program and read computers, how to 
teach at all levels of education, how to use the mass media, how to 
organize production, how to recognize and eschew planned obsolescence, 
how to design, et cetera), and at the same time preserving one’s own 
consciousness in working with the others. (…) (Counterinstitutions) have 
long been an aim of the movement, but the lack of funds was greatly 
responsible for their weakness and their inferior quality. They must be 
made competitive. This is especially important for the development of 
radical, ‘free’ media. (…) They can be competitive, that is to say, apt 
to counteract Establishment education, not only where they fill a vacuum 
or where their quality is not only different but also superior. The 
collection of large funds for the operation of effective 
counterinstitutions requires compromises” (Marcuse 1972, 
Counterrevolution and Revolt, 55f).

Best Christian