[Fis] CfP: Marx is Back - The Importance of Marxist Theory and Research for Critical Communication Studies Today
Marx is Back: The Importance of Marxist Theory and Research for Critical Communication Studies Today Call for Papers for a Special Issue of tripleC – Journal for a Global Sustainable Information Society. Edited by Christian Fuchs and Vincent Mosco http://fuchs.uti.at/wp-content/uploads/CfP_Marx_tripleC.pdf For inquiries, please contact the two editors. In light of the global capitalist crisis, there is renewed interest in Karl Marx’s works and in concepts like class, exploitation and surplus value. Slavoj Žižek argues that the antagonisms of contemporary capitalism in the context of the ecological crisis, the massive expansion of intellectual property, biogenetics, new forms of apartheid and growing world poverty show that we still need the Marxian notion of class. He concludes that there is an urgent need to renew Marxism and to defend its lost causes in order to render problematic capitalism as the only alternative (Žižek 2008, 6) and the new forms of a soft capitalism that promise, and in its rhetoric makes use of, ideals like participation, self-organization, and co-operation, without realizing them. Žižek (2010, chapter 3) argues that the global capitalistcrisis clearly demonstrates the need to return to the critique of political economy. Göran Therborn suggests that the “new constellations of power and new possibilities of resistance” in the 21st century require retaining the “Marxian idea that human emancipation from exploitation, oppression, discrimination and the inevitable linkage between privilege and misery can only come from struggle by the exploited and disadvantaged themselves” (Therborn 2008, 61). Eric Hobsbawm (2011, 12f) insists that for understanding the global dimension of contemporary capitalism, its contradictions and crises, and the persistence of socio-economic inequality, we “must ask Marx’s questions” (13). This special issue will publish articles that address the importance of Karl Marx’s works for Critical Media and Communication Studies, what it means to ask Marx’s questions in 21st century informational capitalism, how Marxian theory can be used for critically analyzing and transforming media and communication today, and what the implications of the revival of the interest in Marx are for the field of Media and Communication Studies. Questions that can be explored in contributions include, but are not limited to: * What is Marxist Media and Communication Studies? Why is it needed today? What are the main assumptions, legacies, tasks, methods and categories of Marxist Media and Communication Studies and how do they relate to Karl Marx’s theory? What are the different types of Marxist Media/Communication Studies, how do they differ, what are their commonalities? * What is the role of Karl Marx’s theory in different fields, subfields and approaches of Media and Communication Studies? How have the role, status, and importance of Marx’s theory for Media and Communication Studies evolved historically, especially since the 1960s? * In addition to his work as a theorist and activist, Marx was a practicing journalist throughout his career. What can we learn from his journalism about the practice of journalism today, about journalism theory, journalism education and alternative media? * What have been the structural conditions, limits and problems for conducting Marxian-inspired Media and Communication Research and for carrying out university teaching in the era of neoliberalism? What are actual or potential effects of the new capitalist crisis on these conditions? * What is the relevance of Marxian thinking in an age of capitalist crisis for analyzing the role of media and communication in society? * How can the Marxian notions of class, class struggle, surplus value, exploitation, commodity/commodification, alienation, globalization, labour, capitalism, militarism and war, ideology/ideology critique, fetishism, and communism best be used for analyzing, transforming and criticizing the role of media, knowledge production and communication in contemporary capitalism? * How are media, communication, and information addressed in Marx’s work? * What are commonalities and differences between contemporary approaches in the interpretation of Marx’s analyses of media, communication, knowledge, knowledge labour and technology? * What is the role of dialectical philosophy and dialectical analysis as epistemological and methodological tools for Marxian-inspired Media and Communication Studies? * What were central assumptions of Marx about media, communication, information, knowledge production, culture and how can these insights be used today for the critical analysis of capitalism? * What is the relevance of Marx’s work for an understanding of social media? * Which of Marx’s works can best be used today to theorize media and communication? Why and how? * Terry Eagleton (2011) demonstrates that the 10 most
Re: [Fis] meaningful information
The meaning of meaning, indeed! I agree that the behaviourist position is unsatisfying, but the effects of perception on a perceiving system begs the question: what is a perceiving system? For me, a perceiving system is one with which we might empathize. That, for me, is the crucial difference between a mechanistic view of meaning as resultant behaviour, and seeing it rather as an internal effect upon the system concerned. To view a system as having such internals, that is, having an intrinsic point of view, is to view it as being an appropriate object of empathy. And empathy, unlike meaning, can be directly explained in third person terms, as second order modeling. Robin (This is my second post of the week, so I can't say any more in the very short term, but my MSc dissertation, available on my website, is quite relevant, and I'm giving a very short but entirely relevant presentation at the DTMD2011 workshop at Milton Keynes in September.) Wednesday, July 20, 2011, 8:13:23 PM, Guy wrote: This is an interesting question. What is the meaning of meaning? I would define as something like the affects of perception on a perceiving system. Once a system has been affected it might change its behavior, but I would hesitate to equate a behavioral response directly to the meaning of a perceived signal. While your definition has the advantage of external observation, I think behavior is too far removed from internal meaningfulness. I wouldn't be comfortable, for example, saying that Skinner's bell meant salivation to his dog subjects. Regards, Guy On 7/20/11 11:47 AM, Steven Ericsson-Zenith ste...@semeiosis.org wrote: There is a lot of concept overloading in the community involving the term meaning. So it would help me if you and Antony could just give a one sentence definition of the term. For example, for me: meaning = the behavior that is the product of apprehending a sign. Which is an extreme pragmatic definition in the spirit of Peirce. Note that this definition excludes, or rather characterizes differently, descriptive sentences of the form The dog runs toward the house. The meaning of which is not that the dog runs toward the house, but the behavior of the apprehender. With respect, Steven On Jul 20, 2011, at 10:41 AM, Loet Leydesdorff wrote: Dear colleagues, Some of you may be interested in this context in my forthcoming article ³ Meaning as a sociological concept: A review of the modeling, mapping, and simulation of the communication of knowledge and meaning, Social Science Information 50(3-4) (2011) 1-23. In preprint available at http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1011/1011.3244.pdf . I argue that the dynamics of meaning are very different from those of information. Best wishes, Loet Loet Leydesdorff Professor, University of Amsterdam Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR), Kloveniersburgwal 48, 1012 CX Amsterdam. Tel.: +31-20- 525 6598; fax: +31-842239111 l...@leydesdorff.net ; http://www.leydesdorff.net/ From: fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of Pedro C. Marijuan Sent: Wednesday, July 20, 2011 1:38 PM To: fis@listas.unizar.es Subject: Re: [Fis] meaningful inforamtion Thanks, Anthony, for the info on your book. As you will see during future discussion sessions (currently we are in the vacation pause) some parties in this list maintain positions not far away from your own views. In our archive you can check accumulated mails about the matter you propose --e.g. discussions during the last spring. But I think you are right that the whole biological scope of information has been rarely discussed. best wishes ---Pedro FIS website and discussions archives: see http://infoscience-fis.unizar.es/ aread...@verizon.net escribió: I emailed an earlier version of the following contribution to the listserve a few days ago and am interested in finding out if it is suitable for dissemination and, if os, when it might be included. My main interest is in promoting discussion about the approach it takes to dealing with the observer-dependent aspects of information. My book Meaningful Information: The BridgeBetween Biology, Brain and Behavior' has just been published by Springer. Itintroduces a radically new way of thinking about information and the importantrole it plays in living systems. Thiså opens up new avenues for exploring howcells and organisms change and adapt, since the ability to detect and respondto meaningful information is the key that enables them to receive their geneticheritage, regulate their internal milieu, and respond to changes in their environment.The types of meaningful information that different species and different celltypes are able to detect are finely matched to the ecosystems in which theylive, for natural selection has shaped what they need to know to functioneffectively within them. Biological detection and
Re: [Fis] CfP: Marx is Back - The Importance of Marxist Theory and Research for Critical Communication Studies Today
Some very quick comments: This is extremely interesting topic. I have this idea also since 2008 when I was reading and considering a lot about sustainability. Capitalism and free market economy, if not regulated or revised by adding some elements of socialism (Maxism or communism) and planned economy, will for sure deplete all the nonrenewable resources. I understand now why many people (including the father and the brothers of my grandmother from a rich landlord in China) from rich families or capitalist families sacrificed their lives for the revolutionary cause of communism. North Korea people live in a much more sustainable way than other countries. (Democracy and dictatorship are another issue of discussion.) It is a pity that the great Soviet Union was destroyed and China has been actually doing the capitalism not long after the death of Mao. Open Access on the Internet is also actually a socialism movement, in my opinion. On 21.07.2011 11:46, Christian Fuchs wrote: Marx is Back: The Importance of Marxist Theory and Research for Critical Communication Studies Today Call for Papers for a Special Issue of tripleC – Journal for a Global Sustainable Information Society. Edited by Christian Fuchs and Vincent Mosco http://fuchs.uti.at/wp-content/uploads/CfP_Marx_tripleC.pdf For inquiries, please contact the two editors. In light of the global capitalist crisis, there is renewed interest in Karl Marx’s works and in concepts like class, exploitation and surplus value. Slavoj Žižek argues that the antagonisms of contemporary capitalism in the context of the ecological crisis, the massive expansion of intellectual property, biogenetics, new forms of apartheid and growing world poverty show that we still need the Marxian notion of class. He concludes that there is an urgent need to renew Marxism and to defend its lost causes in order to render problematic capitalism as the only alternative (Žižek 2008, 6) and the new forms of a soft capitalism that promise, and in its rhetoric makes use of, ideals like participation, self-organization, and co-operation, without realizing them. Žižek (2010, chapter 3) argues that the global capitalistcrisis clearly demonstrates the need to return to the critique of political economy. Göran Therborn suggests that the “new constellations of power and new possibilities of resistance” in the 21st century require retaining the “Marxian idea that human emancipation from exploitation, oppression, discrimination and the inevitable linkage between privilege and misery can only come from struggle by the exploited and disadvantaged themselves” (Therborn 2008, 61). Eric Hobsbawm (2011, 12f) insists that for understanding the global dimension of contemporary capitalism, its contradictions and crises, and the persistence of socio-economic inequality, we “must ask Marx’s questions” (13). This special issue will publish articles that address the importance of Karl Marx’s works for Critical Media and Communication Studies, what it means to ask Marx’s questions in 21st century informational capitalism, how Marxian theory can be used for critically analyzing and transforming media and communication today, and what the implications of the revival of the interest in Marx are for the field of Media and Communication Studies. Questions that can be explored in contributions include, but are not limited to: * What is Marxist Media and Communication Studies? Why is it needed today? What are the main assumptions, legacies, tasks, methods and categories of Marxist Media and Communication Studies and how do they relate to Karl Marx’s theory? What are the different types of Marxist Media/Communication Studies, how do they differ, what are their commonalities? * What is the role of Karl Marx’s theory in different fields, subfields and approaches of Media and Communication Studies? How have the role, status, and importance of Marx’s theory for Media and Communication Studies evolved historically, especially since the 1960s? * In addition to his work as a theorist and activist, Marx was a practicing journalist throughout his career. What can we learn from his journalism about the practice of journalism today, about journalism theory, journalism education and alternative media? * What have been the structural conditions, limits and problems for conducting Marxian-inspired Media and Communication Research and for carrying out university teaching in the era of neoliberalism? What are actual or potential effects of the new capitalist crisis on these conditions? * What is the relevance of Marxian thinking in an age of capitalist crisis for analyzing the role of media and communication in society? * How can the Marxian notions of class, class struggle, surplus value, exploitation, commodity/commodification, alienation, globalization, labour, capitalism, militarism and war, ideology/ideology critique, fetishism, and communism
Re: [Fis] CfP: Marx is Back - The Importance of Marxist Theory and Research for Critical Communication Studies Today
It is easy to forget some important facts about the presumed sustainability of planned/communist, historical and current economies. The Soviet block had an immensly polluting industry which paid almost no attention to the environemntal nor human health. Citizen protests, unlike the NGO acitivity inthe West, were banned. The most ecologically destructive economic project recorded so far inthe world - the draining of the Aral Sea was done in the USSR - an entirely planned disaster! Under Mao, Chinese population was subject to periodic starvation and their economy, despite planning efforts was moving in no direction at all. It is after gradually implementing capitalist institutions since Deng Xiaoping reforms that China become second world economic power and lifted at least a couple of hundred of millions from poverty. In the meantime China is destroying its environment - the consequnce of joint impact of wild capitalism and communist planning (Three Gorges Dam project was initiated under Mao but had economic means for realization only under the capitalist institutions). North Corea is starving periodically its population and depend on foreign aid. These former and current communist economies can not be role models for sustainability in any sense. About the quality of life and human rights in former USSR there is a plenty of evidence from those who lived there, and very few of them feel pity for its collapse. Capitalism and free market economy, if not regulated will for sure deplete all the nonrenewable resources. However, besides planning, which has been very present in the post WWII capitalist economies I do not believe that we can learn much from the former communist systems. The solution may lie in the change of the predominat Western wordview, which is overconfident in technological fixes and dominated by materialist and economic values. Our societies lack substantial environental values and we miss the non-material aspects of the quality of life. This is a legacy of modernity, and a communist ideology pertains to this legacy, and therefore has been equally unfriendly to environemnt. Igor Matutuinovic -Original Message- From: fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of Dr. Shu-Kun Lin Sent: Thursday, July 21, 2011 4:40 PM To: christian.fu...@uti.at; Christian Fuchs Cc: fis@listas.unizar.es Subject: Re: [Fis] CfP: Marx is Back - The Importance of Marxist Theory and Research for Critical Communication Studies Today Some very quick comments: This is extremely interesting topic. I have this idea also since 2008 when I was reading and considering a lot about sustainability. Capitalism and free market economy, if not regulated or revised by adding some elements of socialism (Maxism or communism) and planned economy, will for sure deplete all the nonrenewable resources. I understand now why many people (including the father and the brothers of my grandmother from a rich landlord in China) from rich families or capitalist families sacrificed their lives for the revolutionary cause of communism. North Korea people live in a much more sustainable way than other countries. (Democracy and dictatorship are another issue of discussion.) It is a pity that the great Soviet Union was destroyed and China has been actually doing the capitalism not long after the death of Mao. Open Access on the Internet is also actually a socialism movement, in my opinion. On 21.07.2011 11:46, Christian Fuchs wrote: Marx is Back: The Importance of Marxist Theory and Research for Critical Communication Studies Today Call for Papers for a Special Issue of tripleC – Journal for a Global Sustainable Information Society. Edited by Christian Fuchs and Vincent Mosco http://fuchs.uti.at/wp-content/uploads/CfP_Marx_tripleC.pdf For inquiries, please contact the two editors. In light of the global capitalist crisis, there is renewed interest in Karl Marx’s works and in concepts like class, exploitation and surplus value. Slavoj Žižek argues that the antagonisms of contemporary capitalism in the context of the ecological crisis, the massive expansion of intellectual property, biogenetics, new forms of apartheid and growing world poverty show that we still need the Marxian notion of class. He concludes that there is an urgent need to renew Marxism and to defend its lost causes in order to render problematic capitalism as the only alternative (Žižek 2008, 6) and the new forms of a soft capitalism that promise, and in its rhetoric makes use of, ideals like participation, self-organization, and co-operation, without realizing them. Žižek (2010, chapter 3) argues that the global capitalistcrisis clearly demonstrates the need to return to the critique of political economy. Göran Therborn suggests that the “new constellations of power and new possibilities of resistance” in the 21st century require retaining
Re: [Fis] CfP: Marx is Back - The Importance of Marxist Theory and Research for Critical Communication Studies Today
Dear Shu-Kun I am afraid that planned/communist + democracy combination is not attainable - a kind of contradiction in itself. Beacuse of their complexity, industrialized economies must have a combination of market and planning to function within socailly acceptable range. Markets are moreover important as a vehicle for economic and technological change and adaptation. Once you have markets, you have a degree of income inequality (not necessarily of the US range), your have property rights, and a degree of economic pressure on all agents (a striking difference from economic administration implied in central planning). All this is not compatible with the basic ideological foundations of communism. Besides, democracy imples that on elections the voters may vote against the very institutions that have the attributes of planned/communist (whatever these mean) - they may vote against socialism. This outcome is not originally intended by communist ideology - the communism being the final stage of historic development - according to Marxist historicism. To be frank, Santiago Carillo, the legendary head of the Communist Party of Spain and the promotor of Eurocommunism in the Seventies, was ready to accept such a democratic challenge (at least in theory). The best Igor -Original Message- From: Dr. Shu-Kun Lin [mailto:l...@mdpi.com] Sent: Thursday, July 21, 2011 7:41 PM To: Matutinovic, Igor (GfK Croatia) Cc: christian.fu...@uti.at; Christian Fuchs; fis@listas.unizar.es Subject: Re: [Fis] CfP: Marx is Back - The Importance of Marxist Theory and Research for Critical Communication Studies Today Dear Igor, Dictatorship and democracy is another topic we need to discuss. Maybe there are 4 combinatorial systems: planned/communist + democracy (Is this the most ideal one?) planned/communist + dictatorship (USSR?, North Korea) free market/capitalism + dictatorship (China now?) free market/capitalism + democracy (Most of the Western countries, now) Best regards, Shu-Kun On 21.07.2011 17:54, Matutinovic, Igor (GfK Croatia) wrote: It is easy to forget some important facts about the presumed sustainability of planned/communist, historical and current economies. The Soviet block had an immensly polluting industry which paid almost no attention to the environemntal nor human health. Citizen protests, unlike the NGO acitivity inthe West, were banned. The most ecologically destructive economic project recorded so far inthe world - the draining of the Aral Sea was done in the USSR - an entirely planned disaster! Under Mao, Chinese population was subject to periodic starvation and their economy, despite planning efforts was moving in no direction at all. It is after gradually implementing capitalist institutions since Deng Xiaoping reforms that China become second world economic power and lifted at least a couple of hundred of millions from poverty. In the meantime China is destroying its environment - the consequnce of joint impact of wild capitalism and communist planning (Three Gorges Dam project was initiated under Mao but had economic means for realization only under the capitalist institutions). North Corea is starving periodically its population and depend on foreign aid. These former and current communist economies can not be role models for sustainability in any sense. About the quality of life and human rights in former USSR there is a plenty of evidence from those who lived there, and very few of them feel pity for its collapse. Capitalism and free market economy, if not regulated will for sure deplete all the nonrenewable resources. However, besides planning, which has been very present in the post WWII capitalist economies I do not believe that we can learn much from the former communist systems. The solution may lie in the change of the predominat Western wordview, which is overconfident in technological fixes and dominated by materialist and economic values. Our societies lack substantial environental values and we miss the non-material aspects of the quality of life. This is a legacy of modernity, and a communist ideology pertains to this legacy, and therefore has been equally unfriendly to environemnt. Igor Matutuinovic -Original Message- From: fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of Dr. Shu-Kun Lin Sent: Thursday, July 21, 2011 4:40 PM To: christian.fu...@uti.at; Christian Fuchs Cc: fis@listas.unizar.es Subject: Re: [Fis] CfP: Marx is Back - The Importance of Marxist Theory and Research for Critical Communication Studies Today Some very quick comments: This is extremely interesting topic. I have this idea also since 2008 when I was reading and considering a lot about sustainability. Capitalism and free market economy, if not regulated or revised by adding some elements of socialism (Maxism or communism) and planned economy, will for sure deplete all
Re: [Fis] CfP: Marx is Back - The Importance of Marxist Theory and Research for Critical Communication Studies Today
Hello, I believe Shu-Kun is right that there can be different combinations of economic and political systems. But I think the matter gets even more complex because we can have democratic economies and undemocratic economies, depending on how the production process is organized and managed. I think what Marx imagined is what later in political theory was called participatory democracy, where democracy is extended to the economy in the form of self-management. This was not the reality in the USSR. I think the matter is today what Marx's theory of crisis, labour, capitalism can tell us about the contemporary sitatuon, as well as how one can use his theorization of technology, knowledge production, media, ideology and culture and his concept of dialectics. There is today a big interest in Marx, so if we want to discuss foundations of information (society), we should in my opinion engage with him. tripleC's special issue is a call for such engagements ... I think an excellent foundation for such an engagement is Terry Eagleton's new book Why Marx was right, which discusses and deconstructs 10 common held prejudices against Marx (that he was in favour of dictatorship, a reductionist, determinist, etc). Best, Christian Am 7/21/11 7:40 PM, schrieb Dr. Shu-Kun Lin: Dear Igor, Dictatorship and democracy is another topic we need to discuss. Maybe there are 4 combinatorial systems: planned/communist + democracy (Is this the most ideal one?) planned/communist + dictatorship (USSR?, North Korea) free market/capitalism + dictatorship (China now?) free market/capitalism + democracy (Most of the Western countries, now) Best regards, Shu-Kun On 21.07.2011 17:54, Matutinovic, Igor (GfK Croatia) wrote: It is easy to forget some important facts about the presumed sustainability of planned/communist, historical and current economies. The Soviet block had an immensly polluting industry which paid almost no attention to the environemntal nor human health. Citizen protests, unlike the NGO acitivity inthe West, were banned. The most ecologically destructive economic project recorded so far inthe world - the draining of the Aral Sea was done in the USSR - an entirely planned disaster! Under Mao, Chinese population was subject to periodic starvation and their economy, despite planning efforts was moving in no direction at all. It is after gradually implementing capitalist institutions since Deng Xiaoping reforms that China become second world economic power and lifted at least a couple of hundred of millions from poverty. In the meantime China is destroying its environment - the consequnce of joint impact of wild capitalism and communist planning (Three Gorges Dam project was initiated under Mao but had economic means for realization only under the capitalist institutions). North Corea is starving periodically its population and depend on foreign aid. These former and current communist economies can not be role models for sustainability in any sense. About the quality of life and human rights in former USSR there is a plenty of evidence from those who lived there, and very few of them feel pity for its collapse. Capitalism and free market economy, if not regulated will for sure deplete all the nonrenewable resources. However, besides planning, which has been very present in the post WWII capitalist economies I do not believe that we can learn much from the former communist systems. The solution may lie in the change of the predominat Western wordview, which is overconfident in technological fixes and dominated by materialist and economic values. Our societies lack substantial environental values and we miss the non-material aspects of the quality of life. This is a legacy of modernity, and a communist ideology pertains to this legacy, and therefore has been equally unfriendly to environemnt. Igor Matutuinovic -Original Message- From: fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of Dr. Shu-Kun Lin Sent: Thursday, July 21, 2011 4:40 PM To: christian.fu...@uti.at; Christian Fuchs Cc: fis@listas.unizar.es Subject: Re: [Fis] CfP: Marx is Back - The Importance of Marxist Theory and Research for Critical Communication Studies Today Some very quick comments: This is extremely interesting topic. I have this idea also since 2008 when I was reading and considering a lot about sustainability. Capitalism and free market economy, if not regulated or revised by adding some elements of socialism (Maxism or communism) and planned economy, will for sure deplete all the nonrenewable resources. I understand now why many people (including the father and the brothers of my grandmother from a rich landlord in China) from rich families or capitalist families sacrificed their lives for the revolutionary cause of communism. North Korea people live in a much more sustainable way than other countries. (Democracy and
