Transcript Bild 1 - Studentportalen

Capitalism
 Massive
and unprecedented increase in
wealth
.
 Great
increase of the world population
and health benefits
 Development
of science, culture and
education
4
 Liberty
(vs. Exploitation)
 Equality
(vs. Inequality)
 Mixture
of Hegelian dialectics and British
economics
 Searching
for a rational formula to explain
the evolution of a mankind
 Materialist
conception of history:
The world develops according to a dialectical formula;
the motive force for this development is the matter and
man’s relation to matter, of which the most important
part is the mode of production.
 History
is the history of class struggles
between bourgeoisie and proletariat.
 Social
and economic arrangements in a given
time of history are created by people and can
be changed by people.
 Bourgeoisie
avoids class conflict by
indoctrinating proletariat with ruling-class
ideas, and by presenting them as natural,
universal, not historical.
The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the
ruling ideas: i.e., the class which is the ruling
material force of society is at the same time its ruling
intellectual force. The class which has the means of
material production at its disposal, consequently
also controls the means of mental production, so that
the ideas of those who lack the means of mental
production are on the whole subject to it. (Marx)

From „science of ideas” to a „system” - dominant values,
ideas and representations in a given social order

The image a society gives of itself in order to perpetuate
itself

It naturalizes and legitimizes the existing society and its
institutions and values (normativity and ‘false
consciousness’)

Uses the fabricated images and representation to
persuade us that how things are is how they should be

It limits us to certain places or positions within the
processes of communication and exchange
 Louis
Althusser (1969): ideologies recruit,
‘interpellate’, subjects among individuals or
they transform the latter into subjects
 Ideological
State Apparatuses: a certain
number of realities which present themselves
in the form of distinct and specializcd
institutions such as religion, education or
communications.




The power to win and shape consent.
A mixture of political, economic and cultural forces that
transcends both culture and ideology.
Works through ideology, but does not consist of false
ideas, perceptions or definitions.
Works by inserting the subordinate class into the key
institutions and structures
 Capitalism
produces strangers who suffer from
false consciousness
 Alienation
leads to production of needs and
ultimately to consumption.
 Consumption, including
escape from alienation.
the media, is a form of



Commodity-self (Stuart Ewen): the idea that our
subjectivities are constructed in part through our
consumption and use of commodities.
Commodity fetishism: the process by which massproduced goods are emptied of the meaning of their
production and filled with new meanings in ways that
both mystify the product and turn it into a fetish object.
The fetishization of commodities refers to the
objectification of social relations of production into
relationships between things.



Art losing its aura – ‘mechanical reproduction’ and the
danger of ‘fake aura’ (W. Benjamin, 1936)
Standardization & reification of culture
(Adorno&Horkheimer 1972, George Lukacs 1923)
D. Smythe (1977): the crucial function of the mass
media is not to sell packages of ideology to consumers,
but audiences to advertisers
a)
Propaganda model (E. Herman&N. Chomsky)

a socializing, integrating and educating role of the media requires
a systematic control and propaganda which is practised through
the limits of critique and inequality of power and resources

five filters: 1) size, ownership and profit orientation of the mass
media; 2) advertising as a primary income source; 3) sourcing
mass media news; 4) flak (=criticism, reprimand) as a means of
disciplining the media; 5) anticommunism as a control mechanism
b)
Cultural imperialism

H. Schiller (1969): the role of media in mobilizing international
support for U.S. global domination and the transnational corporate
order; empire-building through the marriage of ‘economics and
electronics’



Social, political and economic context of the media
Ownership, control, operation of the media
Roles and functions played by the media and popular
artwork
 What ideas and values are spread and which are

neglected – reasons?
How the conditions of power affect individual creativity.

BREAK UP WITH AND STAND OUTSIDE IDEOLOGY