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Thanks Jon for sharing your really interesting thoughts! I still
want to read the paper "Do Marxists use Facebook?" though ;) <br>
Best, Astrid<br>
<br>
<br>
Am 14.02.12 21:50, schrieb Jonathan Beller:
<blockquote
cite="mid:5FDA8802-1881-4489-BC4E-356907047E95@pratt.edu"
type="cite">Dear All,
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Forgive the intrusion, especially as I, very regrettably for
me, will not be at the Uppsala conference. However I want to say
-- as someone who has been working on Marxist political economy
of visuo-digital technologies for two decades now, and as
someone who has never been friended or had a friend on face-book
-- that neither of these practices provide any guarantee of
radicalism. Even though it is arguable that representation
itself has been fully subsumed by capital-logic and therefore
that entry into the domain of representation is now always
already a re-entry into networked expropriation structurally
managed to increase the accumulation of capital and hence,
necessarily, the abundance of dispossession, it is still not a
given that to exist at the margins of representation or even
beyond the horizons of the representable constitutes a
revolution, or even a revolutionary. From the standpoint of
existence, to not exist is not necessarily radical. Of course
this void, occupied perhaps by the majority of humans on the
planet (and undoubtedly by the majority of life), can, these
days at least, only be posited from within representation and
thus, it seems, from within capital. Imagine what it woud be
like to not be on Facebook, to not be an academic, to not be
enfranchised at least to some degree as a global citizen, etc.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Which is to assert two things: 1) All of us who are included
in this sentence (in any way) are complicit with the production
and reproduction of capitalist society and 2) we must strain the
limits of discourse far beyond the academico-scientific
grammars; which is to say that to <i>seriously</i> embark on
the project under discussion on this list serve, one must wage
constant war on meaning itself. Meaning that what we need to
seek is the non-sensical, impossible, foreclosed, beyonds and
futures of actually existing semiosis. In answer to the question
in the subject line of this email, it's an aesthetic project,
amigos, and also a social one -- finding ways to graft our
energies and attentions to the struggles of specters. It is not
and never could be merely an economic and/or technical one and
be anything other than a radically cynical endeavor.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Reading Marx is never a bad idea, I completely agree, and
there are things to learn from our romance with the actually
existing Italians. But an analysis that does not understand
race, gender, language-group, sexuality, nation etc., as
themselves <i>political-economic</i> categories (and not merely
analytical categories beyond the domain of political economy) --
that is as real abstractions that themselves operate as engines
of production and reproduction -- will find itself writing a
technical manual for the overthrow of the state that will serve
only aspirant bureaucrats. This is in no way to belittle the
brilliant work and brilliance of those who will convene in
Uppsala. Only to say that with this project there arises
aesthetic, cultural, representational and affective demands that
the language of political economy, even Marxist political
economy, will be at great pains to execute. It is not time for
the discipline of communications theory to absorb the world,
rather it is time for the world to absorb the discipline. We
must bring the world, the myriad and singular struggles of
peoples, and those parts of our distributed selves which are
perhaps of the world, into the space of our nascent discipline
and run the risk of destroying it. Otherwise the lived time of
the global south, all the unremunerated living labor of survival
performed by the unrepresented and unrepresentable billions,
serves, as it does for the global society, merely to produce a
writing surface for us experts too, a virtual place for us to
encode our contemplations about leaving facebook from the safety
of our offices.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I think back to Negri's early work where he spent some time
considering Marx's class hatred. A significant dose of animus to
animate the theory. Hatred, rage, outrage, indignation, disgust
-- we can use these things, indeed, I would say we must.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>With these elements in mind, as well as their utopian
corollaries,</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Jon</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
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<div>Jonathan Beller</div>
<div>Professor</div>
<div>Humanities and Media Studies</div>
<div>Critical and Visual Studies</div>
<div>Pratt Institute</div>
<div><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:jbeller@pratt.edu">jbeller@pratt.edu</a></div>
<div>718-636-3573 (office fax)<span
class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:
pre; "> </span></div>
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style="white-space: pre; "> </span></span></div>
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<div>
<div>On Feb 14, 2012, at 11:24 AM, Ekaterina Petrovna wrote:</div>
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
<blockquote type="cite">
<div>Dear Astrid,</div>
<div> </div>
<div>your take on the role of the researcher/ versus using
these platforms for promotion etc, is an excellent one! In
fact, there should be an article on it, something like 'Do
Marxists use Facebook and why?" or "Can you be critical
and STILL be on Facebook?"</div>
<div>I think that this touches a more general debate about
the role of the researcher in the current age:
universities become more and more commercial structures
and everyone is looking for funds, - and these platforms
indeed seem as a way to look for them and promote one's
work.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>best regards,</div>
<div>Ekaterina Netchitailova<br>
<br>
</div>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 4:02 PM,
astrid mager <span dir="ltr"><<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:astrid.mager@univie.ac.at">astrid.mager@univie.ac.at</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote style="BORDER-LEFT:#ccc 1px solid;MARGIN:0px
0px 0px 0.8ex;PADDING-LEFT:1ex" class="gmail_quote">Dear
all,<br>
<br>
this is a highly interesting discussion! I totally agree
with the importance of the (Marxist) political economy
of Google & co.<br>
My own work has become increasingly political over the
last years showing how the capitalist spirit gets
inscribed in search engines by way of social practices,
which similarly applies to Facebook and other corporate
platforms of course.. I call it the "algorithmic
ideology" in the talk I proposed for the Uppsala
conference:<br>
<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.astridmager.net/?p=1810"
target="_blank">http://www.astridmager.net/?p=1810</a><br>
<br>
Concerning this line of work I find approaches from
critical theory very useful since they allow for
understanding how capitalism materializes in search
technologies, how users get involved in Google's capital
accumulation cycle, how technologies spread and solidify
hegemonic power etc. Despite the relevance of these
aspects for contemporary internet research - especially
because of the celebratory accounts dominating the
field, as someone pointed out earlier - I see a paradox
that increasingly disturbs me:<br>
<br>
How do we - critical internet researchers - and our own
self-promoting online practices fit into the picture?
Google, Facebook, Twitter and other services have become
useful tools for promoting our own (critical) work,
right? Apart from researches, who just recently commited
a social media suicide or never joined those platforms
in the first place, lots of researchers are using these
services and hence increasing & stabilizing their
power, advertising revenue and exploitation schemes..
while lots of internet users only unconsciously support
these mechanisms we (and I deliberately include myself
here) DO know/ even write about those dynamics etc.. BUT
still use the services, which raises a number of
questions:<br>
<br>
Why do we use Facebook and not <a
moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://Diaspora.org">Diaspora.org</a>
and other non-profit tools & alternative
technologies? (with all their drawbacks Christian
pointed out)<br>
Could we escape Facebook & co. in an age of
(academdic) self-promotion where being known/ having
followers and friends/ being talked about/ being read
has become almost more important than doing research
itself?<br>
Didn't we turn into commodities long before Facebook
& Google started their businesses? (Or is it a
phenomenon they co-produced?)<br>
And if users matter (and I do agree on that since my
background is in STS as well), how do critical internet
researches/ we matter in terms of supporting/
stabilizing those tools? (and other ones like Google
Analytics enabling us to participate in and even benefit
from the surveillance culture they perpetuate)<br>
Or could we think of our activities as (ab)using those
tools to advocate against them? In fact, where else
could we reach people & raise awareness about new
media and their negative facets if not on the platforms
themselves?<br>
But could we then ever overcome their power and
monopolies?<br>
And how could we avoid Google if there is no better
non-profit search engine available?<br>
...<br>
<br>
I wonder what the list thinks about those aspects! (and
if people totally disagree with me because they never
joined those platforms and thus think of me as weak,
cynical and commercialized? - but how do they search
then?)<br>
<br>
Thanks for the discussion!! I'm really looking forward
to the conference (where I probably "won't shake my head
about the stupidity of 90% of what I hear" ;) )<br>
<br>
Best wishes from Vienna, Astrid<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
Am 14.02.12 01:52, schrieb Christian Fuchs:
<div class="HOEnZb">
<div class="h5"><br>
<blockquote style="BORDER-LEFT:#ccc 1px
solid;MARGIN:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;PADDING-LEFT:1ex"
class="gmail_quote">Dear colleagues,<br>
<br>
Thanks a lot for the discussion contributions thus
far. My own experience is that the more intense
and controversial and constructive the
pre-conference discussion is, the better the
conference will be. And what we really want to
have is some good intellectual debates in Uppsala,
not one of the usual conferences, where you go,
shake your head about the stupidity of 90% of what
you hear and go home again. So all of you on this
list are very much welcome to engage in the
discussion, to contradict what others are saying,
to express your views, etc. What we want to foster
with this list and the conference is a deep
critical intellectual discussion.<br>
<br>
I think the issues brought up thus far require us
to consider the relation between:<br>
a) Critical Political Economy of Communication<br>
b) Cultural Studies<br>
c) Frankfurt School Critical Theory<br>
d) Alternative Media Studies<br>
<br>
I have myself argued that we need a
synthesis/integration of these approaches, but I
want to be more specific because I do not think
that we need any kind of synthesis, but a specific
dialectical unity in diversity of specific
expressions of these four contributions. So what I
want to argue is that all four of these approaches
have been (to a more or less extant) both much
wrong and right.<br>
<br>
a) Critical Political Economy of Communciation<br>
<br>
Dallas Smythe's and Nicholas Garnham's approaches
have been strongly focused on aspects of capital
accumulation and commodification, often
downplaying the importance of ideology in
capitalism, although Marx's Capital, Vol 1,
focused on both a) commodification and b) ideology
critique (the commodity fethishism chapter). I
adivce to re-read Graham (Murdock's) answer to
Dallas Smythe in the Blindspot Debate because he
very much pointed out the importance of ideology,
which builds bridges of Critical Political Economy
towards both Critical Cultural Studies (Williams,
Thompson, Hall, etc) and Frankfurt School that are
both much interested in ideology.<br>
<br>
My own criticism of the approach of "Political
Economy of Media/Communication" is that actually
there are many forms of political economy
(neoliberal, Keynesian, Schumpeterian,
institutional, Marxist, etc) and that the use of
the term "Political Economy of
Media/Communication/Culture/Information" (as in
book titles, recent handbooks, etc) has obscured
the term "Marxist/Critical" as prefix, although
the specific thinkers have had much Marxist and
critical intentions. I think the grounding in
Marx, which means the groundning in class analysis
and the critique of capitalism, should be visible
in naming the approach, which it is not if we just
speak of "Political Economy of X" and not "Marxist
Political Economy of X"...<br>
<br>
b) Cultural Studies<br>
<br>
The works of Williams, Thompson, (partly) Hall etc
were much grounded in the works of Marx and were a
specific critical analysis of ideology in
capitalism. Critical classical cultural studies
shared with Frankfurt School the interest in the
critque of ideology. I think what happened in much
of recent Cultural Studies is that a) the category
of class was dropped, which implied a reformist
cultural poltics that no longer wanted to abolish
capitalism and substituted class analysis by
identity politics instead of complementing the two
and that b) there was a theoretical
simplification. Take a look at an arbitrary work
by Fiske, Jenkins et al: They do not cite Marx or
Gramsci etc, they only cite what Hall et al say
that Gramsci said (and they anyway never cite Marx
or Hegel because they have not read these works,
which actually is my largest criticism of these
thinkers - they are anti-critical theory). I doubt
that they have ever read Marx or Gramsci or even
Hegel. The Marxist roots of Cultural Studies have
been destroyed, and this has resulted in a
reformist agenda that no longer questions
capitalism. In my own Uppsala conference talk, one
part will be a radical critique of Henry Jenkins
(and Manuel Castells, who is not Cultural Studies,
but something that is also not very critical).<br>
<br>
c) Frankfurt School Critical Theory<br>
<br>
Frankfurt School shares with Classical Critical
Cultural Studies the interest in ideology. But the
picture of Frankfurt School has both in "Political
Economy of the Media" and Cultural Studies often
been very simplified, ignoring its own
complexities. Garnham and Smythe said that
Frankfurt School ignored political economy, which
is wrong, if you take a look at the presence of
political economists like Friedrich Pollock and
Henryk Grossman in Critical Theory. Frankfurt
School understood itself always as
interdisciplinary project involving various
aspects of Marxist thinking. Some strands in
Cultural Studies have argued that Frankfurt School
has seen the audience as "culutral dupes".
Frankfurt School is much more sophisticated, one
can think about Adorno's analysis of re-education
after Auschwitz, where the media and schools have
a special role, Enzensberger's and Brecht's
alternative media theory, and even Adorno's take
on the need of an alternative TV. The problems of
prejudiced Cultural Studies scholars is that they
have never read or understood much of Frankfurt
School, either because of language limits (not
everything has been translated from German to
English, so probably you have to be able to read
German to fully grasp Critical Theory) or because
of ignorance.<br>
<br>
A second aspect is the Habermasian turn in
Frankfurt School, I have myself been long critical
of Habermas, but think that we should re-discover
Habermas' Marxist and communist roots and his big
connection to Adorno and Marcuse. But one thing
remains: You can refer to Habermas without ever
questioning capitalism, you can NEVER refer to
Marcuse in a reformist and pro-captitalist way,
you can be quite pro-capitalist in relation to
Habermas' works (and that is why I think scholars
today talk so much about Habermas and much less
about Marcuse, which is a pity). So much in line
with Andrew Feenberg's works, I think we have to
re-discover the importance of Marcuse for Marxist
Studies of Culture today.<br>
<br>
d) Alternative Media Studies<br>
<br>
I think the area of Alternative Media Studies is
also crucial for transforming society and the
media. Cultural Studie has too often focused on
altenrative media usage and interpretation, but
the question is, if we should not start with
alternative practices of producing media
(alternatives to Facebook, alternatives to Fox,
alternatives to CNN, alternatives to everything).
Alternative media have always been close to social
struggles, they are social struggle and social
movement media.<br>
<br>
The problem that alternative media are facing is
that a) if they cannot gain material and political
influence (power, money) they are within
capitalism based on precarious labour, voluntary
self-exploitative labour, lack of resources etc,
which enables a radical project, but results in a
lack of mass availability, and that b) if they
accept material support either by the state (state
funding) or capital (advertising, marketization,
etc), they may risk loosing their autonomy and
criticality. Alternative media in capitalism are
facing the antogonism between self-exploitation
and autonomy. I think that in alternative media
studies, these kind of media are too often
idealised witout seeing the constraints. At the
same time, it is important to see how actual
struggles manage to make use of media for
organizing themselves, but are actually facing
limits at the same time (state surveillance of
media use by revolutionaries, etc). Autonomist
Marxist Theory stresses much the role of mediated
class struggle today, although it tends to
idealise knowledge labour and to ignore the
constraints of ideolgoy, which we also have to
take into account.<br>
<br>
e) What way to go?<br>
<br>
My proposition is is that all four approaches are
failed, to different extent. And I think that the
lack today is the focus on Marx. Marx had all of
these elements - accumulation, consumption,
ideology, struggles and alternatives. So my first
and foremost proposition is that by re-orienting
our analysis on Marx, and by reading Marx again
together with students and young people and
everyone, we can gain so tremendously much for
establishing a truly Critical Media and
Communication Studies that challenges the
contemporary dominance of uncritical,
instrumental, technological, neoliberal
rationality. And this is not purely abstract, it
relates to the ongoing and contemporary struggles
that we have to fight now.<br>
<br>
So some thoughts about our conference.<br>
<br>
Good night and good luck, Christian<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
-- <br>
Prof. Christian Fuchs<br>
Chair in Media and Communication Studies<br>
Department of Informatics and Media<br>
Uppsala University<br>
Kyrkogårdsgatan 10<br>
Box 513<br>
751 20 Uppsala<br>
Sweden<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:christian.fuchs@im.uu.se"
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Tel <a moz-do-not-send="true"
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471 1019</a><br>
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