[ICTs-and-Society] Fwd: Re: Uppsala conference: Plenary session 5 “Work, Class, Gender and,Proletarianization in the Age of Knowledge, the Internet and Communication” (Ursula Huws, Catherine McKercher)

[Christian Fuchs]

Von: Paschal Preston <paschal.preston at dcu.ie>

Hi,
Thanks and congratulations to all for that really interesting set of
postings and exchanges in recent weeks.  They promise a very interesting
and stimulating conference, indeed.  I’m sorry that I will not be able
to get to Uppsala and attend.

I have only managed to catch up and get opportunity to read through the
recent posts  over the past few days. This is partly due to fall-out
from being ‘situated’ and labouring in one of the “eyes of the storm” in
terms of the destruction being wrought by the current ‘great western
financial crisis’  [as some Asian scholars like to name it].  All of
which, surprisingly enough,  leads me to suggest that you might give
concepts like ‘crisis’ and restructuring, or even [‘predictable’ rather
than ‘creative’] destruction a prominent airing during your conf.
proceedings. A longer version of that suggestion follows immediately below.

Best wishes for a great conference,
Paschal Preston

For almost 20 years now, new ICTs [esp. as the ‘Internet’,  then Web
2-00 or ‘Social Media’, or Twitter]  along with the concepts of
information society and knowledge economy have together formed a (holy
or unholy) ‘trinity’ at the heart of policy discussions and strategies
related to ‘future’ economic and social development in European Union
context. Yet, the meanings and roles of that ‘trinity’ are neither fixed
nor eternal, and no more stable than the surrounding institutions which
frame the EU and  Eurozone projects .....

But if communication scholars like myself look outside the furrows of
our own little niches within the deepening divisions of intellectual
labour [or don our ‘reflexive’ lenses] we quickly realise that new ICTs
do not possess a monopoly when it comes to playing a ‘fundamental role’
in economic and societal development in Europe.    Indeed, even the most
cursory content analysis will indicate that the Internet nor Twitter did
not feature as a star actor [ or’ actant’] in  the most dramatic or
‘fundamental’ news media stories of the past four years which directly
relate to the  contours of economic and societal development in Europe.

At least since the advent of the current ‘great western financial
crisis’, the  political economy and power-plays of finance, credit and
money  are manifestly playing the most ‘fundamental‘ role in shaping the
future economic and societal development in Europe and beyond. [That
remains the key message even if we notice some interesting new shifts
within the old Atlantic heartlands of global capitalism. For example, it
now appears that the USA govt. is tilting more towards Keynesianism (and
so faring better in terms of GDP and employment growth measures) than
the states of ‘old Europe’,  despite all their previously presumed
baggage or traditions of ‘social democracy’ ].

So, amidst this systemic crisis, it appears that the  political economy
(or the plain ‘politics’ and ‘economics’)  of   the interplays between
two old but fundamental ‘steering media’ (Habermas) of modern capitalist
societies  ‘power’ and ‘money’ (incl. finance, credit etc)  operate as
the key influences on the future shape and meanings of  core terms such
as ‘Europe’  .

Indeed, the current financial and economic crisis has operated to raise
the risks and  cast new doubts over the  future shape, meaning or even
sustainability of certain key institutional arrangements that had been
taken as givens within  communication study [and many other]  fields
for  some decades – in ways that would have been unthinkable even five
years ago.   These novel risks and doubts pertain to the very
survivability of the  Eurozone or even the European Union project . They
include questions and doubts concerning most prior assumptions that such
supra-national entities could be governed in multi-lateral modes with at
least some semblance to the principles of  liberal representative
democracy.

As a result, we are now clearly in the setting of a relatively rare but
major crisis whose ramifications extend way beyond the domains of
concern  usually associated with the terms ‘financial’ or ‘economic’ .

Yet, it is far from clear that practitioners within the communication
studies [or other  neighbouring fields]  have fully recognised the
significance of  this crisis moment or embraced  its ramifications for
key concepts or practices that has long been (previously) assumed to be
mere matters of incremental change and adjustment within a prevailing
furrow or paradigm.

Clearly, there may be a distinct bonus [ and other self-interests] for
certain bankers or other financiers to ask ‘crisis, what crisis?’,  and
so engage in denying the existence of this crisis and its ramifications.
But such self-serving and blinkered  perspectives certainly do not
apply  to academic researchers or many other practitioners within the
communication policy and neighbouring fields.

In essence, the latter must recognise [and must be explicitly attentive
to]  the existence  and implications of  the current deep and
historically rare moment of  ‘crisis’ ( one that is as much political as
it is financial and economic in scope).

Such deep crises may be rare but they are not unprecedented, and we can
usefully appropriate certain implications which may be derived from
close observers or prior episodes (e.g. Marx;  Schumpeter; Freeman).
In particular, given  the present setting,  we would argue at the
outset  that this kind of crisis moment implies the need for, and
benefits of , adjusting analytical lens to accord greater recognition
and engagement with:

.1)   A certain sidelining  of  the  salience [or ‘fundamental’]  role
of   the ‘digital’ or technological moment (Internet) in well-grounded
analyses of economic and societal development  [i.e.  as compared to the
pre-crisis context ]

.2)  A corresponding  accentuation of the  ‘fundamental’ role of
economic moments, especially  struggles over  ‘distribution’  and  the
allocation of the costs and benefits of the devaluation of overvalued
capital (the key economic aspect of ‘creative destruction’) ;
~~ This in turn implies a greater attention and sensitivity to issues of
socio-economic inequality (not least those posed by the rising levels of
mass unemployment and  state-based ‘austerity’ policies).

.3)  A corresponding  amplification of the  ‘fundamental’ role and
salience of  ‘political’ and  ‘ideological’  (ideas, values and norms)
moments   amidst the now intensified search for viable or sustainable
new socio-technical paradigms to underpin any new phase of
socio-economic development in Europe.

.4) This explicit recognition of the current ‘crisis setting’ together
with the three specific implications for political economic analysis [as
indicated above]  also entails  a fundamental interrogation,
re-visioning, or reconstruction of key concepts related to specific
media services/culture industries as domains of inquiry (‘meso’-level of
analyses).

.5)   More specifically, the foregoing implies that there is a pressing
need to engage anew with (interrogate in new light given the current
crisis setting) certain key ideas, concepts and recent developmental
trends related to :
.a) the relation between the Internet and public policy (now, in
‘future’ and in past)
.b) the evolving  concepts of information society/knowledge economy and
their relation to Future orientated strategies and policies for economic
and societal development in Europe or indeed, the wider north-Atlantic
core of old capitalism.

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Paschal Preston
Director, COMTEC research unit,
Professor, School of Communication,
Dublin City University,
Glasnevin, Dublin 9, IRELAND
Tel: +353-1 700-5478
Email: Paschal.Preston at dcu.ie
Webpage: http://www.comms.dcu.ie/prestonp/
-----------------------------------------------------.