On Wed, 04 Oct 2000 11:34:31 -0400 Barbie <kwalker2 at gte.net> wrote:
> ken! you've become a economic determinst while i've been searching for the
keys to the 'vette. that's it! i will no longer let you read to me or fan me
or feed me grapes!
Grapes sold separately from now on in, eh?
> to say that something is a cultural institution, ken doll, is not to say
that it is anything other than fully integrated into a --*A*-- political
economy.
--> *the* political economy. Let's not give up on our universals just yet. "I have 'a' theory of political economy" - but this theory is a theory about 'the' political economy.
> > Or are those 7 minute breaks between commericals actually meaningful? Even
if those 7 minute breaks between commercials are meaningful, they're in full
compliance with the consumer industry...
> yeah, so is there someplace outside of that?
Not for long.
> who gets to decide content in some groovy utopia?
You do.
> >m-e-d-i-a-t-i-o-n is my word of the day.
> m-e-d-i-a-t-i-o-n-s. meeeeeeeeeedeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaayyshuns. mediations.
Sigh. Immediacy is always mediated, which always implies heteronomy. But if we stick to mediations and not mediation we lose the LOGIC of dialectical thought. To say that some things are mediated by one thing, and not by others is to miss the entire point of a social theory that connects all of the parts to a whole. Pluralizing the concept relativizes the analysis. So I'm going to stick to mediation.
> okay ken, joker me this: is the media an instrument of the political
economy in groovy utopia where it's in the hands of "the people"? what about
when newspapers were run and owned by people for the purpose of espousing a
political view, as part of local political machines, before advertising. was
that not mass media?
I'm not really all that interested in groovy utopia. However, as Marx well knew when he was scrounging around for $$$ to put together various newspapers or journals - the media is always a product of the economic conditions which make it possible to exist as media. There is no "pure" political media, advertising or no advertising. The best we can hope for, as you've pointed out, is a diversification of existing media forms and the creation of new media which alter both the production and reception. The medium (and coincidentally the conditions under which such a medium is produced) is the message. The six o'clock news is minimum wage.
> b.s. the lifeworld is just as contested as the sybsystems of the market and
the state. rationalization OF THE LIFEWORLD.!!!!!!!!!!!
Errr... not as lifeworld. The lifeworld is thematized into discourse when and only when it becomes contested. Once contested it ceases to become the lifeworld. Habermas's notion of the lifeworld isn't all that different from Freud's notion of the uncs - it ceases to be uncs when it is brought into consciousness. At least that's how he deploys the concept, which may or may not be of much merit. Lifeworld works on the level of presuppositions. Rationalization begins when these presuppositions fall under critical inspection or controversy - ie. when they cease to be presuppositions.
> but ya like me! heh.
Yeah. It's because your special.
ken