Political Economy of Media in Europe

8/6/2019 Political Economy of Media in Europe

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M I K H A I L P U S H K I N

Political Economy of Media inEurope


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Nicholas Garnham

y Born 1937 and lives today

y Diverse and intriguing background: Royal Navy

Film director, editor, producer for BBC and freelance Media, Culture and Society journal editor

Studied at Sorbonne

Head of Media Department at Westminster University


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Media

y Media is both a product of capitalist system and anideological one

y Media should be studied within its time frame

y Media should be studied within global context ofmodern imperialism, neo-colonialism, New WorldInformation Order


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Media and Culture

y Mass media and Culture Production andReproduction age merged with capitalist structureand enterprises

y Multinational Corporations control all spheres ofmedia production, consumption, distribution andmanufacture on hardware, software and ideologicallevel

y We have limited resources to make sense of it, so weneed to focus on key cases underlying trends


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On capitalist system of our time

y Abstract system of exchange relations

y Characterized by exchange of phenomenal formsand real relations

y In other words exchange system of abstract ideasand real things (work, lived experience)

y Theyre not opposed, but are reflections of each otherwithin the capitalist abstract system narrative


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Ideology-Surplus-Labour

y Labor is application of work to nature to receive fromit

y Minimal labour for survival and reproduction is that

without surplusy Surplus is needed for ideologies to exist (surplus of

produced things)

y Capitalism ensures majority is close to minimal

labour in its way of existence


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Material, Economic, Ideological

y Distinct yet interpenetrating

y Everything is interconnected in a kind of strugglebetween private/state/capitalist

y Politics struggles against capitalist economic formsof control

y Social interaction forms are material, yet dictated byideology of the time sustaining certain economic

system

y Economic is the superstructure of our timeregulating material and dictating ideology


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Critique of Existing Marxist Theories

y Reduction of everything to manifestation of the willof the ruling class as opposed to complex economic,ideological and political network linked to history.

y Reduction of the role and complex bidirectionalrelationship between the media and the hegemonypositioning media as subjected device of propaganda

broadcast

y Narrowing down to specific instances, like Smythestheory of audience as commodity


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On ideology

y While a tool to promote ideology is also a field ofstruggle between politics and economic

y Reflected in private(capitalist) and state

y Breaks down into more complex message notnecessarily as dictated

y Based on differences therefore controversial


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Dualism of culture

y Culture as produced by the hegemonic mode

y Culture as produced by workers

y Culture as born out of capitalism

y Culture as born out of working class (organicintellectuals)

y Ideologists directly paid special class

y

Cultural products are ambivalent to the point ofbeing ideologically subversive

y Dualism state investing into pro-state commercials


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Mental production

y Contradictory

y Where, what and how much is surplus?

y Subjugation: Copyright

Media for sale (newspapers)

Artificial expiry

Smythe

State intervention


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Cultural Surplus

y Initiation conditions:

Spare capital

Expected profit

y Bound up with country conditionsy Linked with means and materials for its distribution


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Present Condition

y Traditional areas overloaded with capital

y Lots of surplus capital looking for investment space

y Investment goes to alternative sectors

y Multinational competition

y Attempts to open up, absorb new markets abroadand convert local state-owned media into a private(capitalist) one


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Armand Mattelart

y Spent a year as a monk

y Gained fame in Chile and supported Allende

y Currently professor Emeritus at the University of

Paris


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How to read Donald Duck

Political Economy of Media in Europe

Documents