tripleC journal: Capitalist Crisis, Communication & Culture, Vol 8, No 2 (2010)
Filed under journal | Tags: · capitalism, communication, financial crisis, information society, information technology, media
The worldwide economic downturn is indicative for a new large crisis of capitalism. The future of capitalism is in this situation not determined, but depends on collective human agency. This introduction to the special issue of tripleC on “Capitalist Crisis, Communication & Culture” presents general arguments about the crisis, a general model of the political economy of capitalist communication, and a systematic typology of literature about capitalist crisis & communication. The introduced model of the political economy of capitalist communication is comprised of seven interconnected moments: 1) the media content industry, 2) the media infrastructure industry, 3) the interaction of the media economy and the non-media economy, 4) the interaction of the finance sector and the media economy, 5) alternative media, 6) media reception, 7) media prosumption. The model is used for classifying actual and potential research about the communicative dimension of the new capitalist crisis.
tripleC (cognition, communication, co-operation): Open Access Journal for a Global Sustainable Information
Society 8 (2): 193-309.
Editors: Fuchs, Christian, Matthias Schafranek, David Hakken and Marcus Breen.
Special issue on “Capitalist crisis, communication & culture“.
tripleC is a peer-reviewed, open-access journal (ISSN: 1726-670X)
All journal content, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Austria License.
Manuel Castells: Communication Power (2009)
Filed under book | Tags: · business, communication, global warming, internet, mass media, network society, neuroscience, politics, technology, youtube
We live in the midst of a revolution in communication technologies that affects the way in which people feel, think, and behave. The mass media (including web-based media), Manuel Castells argues, has become the space where political and business power strategies are played out; power now lies in the hands of those who understand or control communication.
Over the last thirty years, Castells has emerged as one of the world’s leading communications theorists. In this, his most far-reaching book for a decade, he explores the nature of power itself, in the new communications environment. His vision encompasses business, media, neuroscience, technology, and, above all, politics. His case histories include global media deregulation, the misinformation that surrounded the invasion of Iraq, environmental movements, the role of the internet in the Obama presidential campaign, and media control in Russia and China. In the new network society of instant messaging, social networking, and blogging–“mass self-communication”–politics is fundamentally media politics. This fact is behind a worldwide crisis of political legitimacy that challenges the meaning of democracy in much of the world.
Publisher Oxford University Press, 2009
ISBN 0199567042, 9780199567041
Length 571 pages
Palo Fabuš: Laschova teorie narcistní kultury jako inspirace pro mediální studia (2009) [Czech]
Filed under thesis | Tags: · audience, communication, media, media studies, narcissism, postmodernity, psychoanalysis, self, survivalism, theory
Práce se pokouší představit teorii narcistní kultury amerického historika Christophera Lasche jakožto inspiraci pro mediální studia. Činí tak analýzou vybraných mediálních teorií autorů Jeana Baudrillarda, Joshuy Meyrowitze, Neila Postmana a dvojice Brian Longhurst a Nicholas Abercrombie. Malá pozornost, kterou tyto teorie venují roli mediálního publika je zde interpretována jako bílé místo, které by Laschova teorie mohla zaplnit modelem narcistní osobnostní struktury.
Lasch ve své historické studii kulturních proměn ve 20. století vychází z rozpadu rodiny způsobeného psychologizací společnosti, vlivem reklamy a nástupem byrokratického paternalismu, který nahradil původně rodičovské funkce. Rodí se tak narcistní osobnost vyznačující se vnitřním psychologickým motorem sebe-nenávist a nutkavou potrebou obklopovat se iluzemi všemohoucnosti, která se projevuje vyhledáváním spektáklu a stažením se do sebe. Inspirativnost této teorie pro mediální studia je tak představena v podobe užitečného modelu pro analýzu médií v paradigmatu aktivních publik.
Klíčová slova: narcismus, Lasch, postmodernita, média, komunikace, Já, survivalismus, psychoanalýza.
Diplomová práce
Masarykova Univerzita, Fakulta sociálních studií
Vedoucí práce: prof. PhDr. Jiří Pavelka, CSc.
Brno: FSS MU, 2009
Lasch’s narcissism culture theory as an inspiration for media studies
The thesis aims to introduce the narcissism culture theory of american historian Christopher Lasch as an inspiration for media studies. It does so by analysing selected media theories of Jean Baudrillard, Joshua Meyrowitz, Neil Postman and Brian Longhurst with Nicholas Abercrombie. Little attention these theories draw to the role of media audience is interpreted here as a gap, which could be potentially filled by Lasch’s theory with its model of narcissistic character.
In his historical study of culture changes in 20th century Lasch starts from the dissolution of family inflicted by psychologization of society, influence of advertising and emergence of bureaucratic paternalism substituting rearing function of parents. Through these processes comes birth of narcissistic personality, which can be distinguished by inner psychological drive of self-hate and compulsive need to surround him- or herself with illusion of omnipotence manifested through seeking out of spectacle and drawing within. The inspirative potential of the theory is thus introduced in a form of a useful model for a media analysis within the active audience paradigm.