CRD701: History and Theory of Communication Technology

Briggs and Burke (2002) begin this week by reminding me of the incredible power that the radio had at one time over a largely captive audience. The example of Orson Welles driving a country to panic by fictionalizing an alien landing (p. 174) demonstrates that that kind of reaction could not be achieved today in real time; we have two many channels of information that could diffuse the situation. The Internet today, while powerful, quick, distributed and ubiquitous, is not as captivating as broadcasting was in the middle of the 20th century. FDR's infamous "fireside chats" were another example of this contrast; do you think Bush (or Obama, or McCain) today could comfort the American masses during crisis the way FDR did in the 30's? It has to do with more than individual leadership or rhetorical acumen; the available media to deliver the message has a noticeable impact as well. There was no legion of Web users that live blogged their reactions to FDR, no 24-hour news cycle that provided instant/inane analysis to how he framed the situation from day to day. Mid-century communications enjoyed/suffered (depending on perspective) from a dearth of constant updates, sure, but more so from a deficiency of media outlets; news was, in every sense of the term, periodical. I think Briggs and Burke missed a key opportunity to discuss the impact of the radio v. the news press on the illiterate masses, and they might have framed that discussion in terms of constituitive audiences, but given both authors' proclivities for garrulous histories, I suppose I can excuse their shortcoming this week. (They do at least touch on radio serving some of the functions of Habermas's public sphere ((p. 187)), so...good for them.)

I was interested in how Briggs and Burke sharply contrasted the broadcasting institutions of the US with the UK, where John Reith--"the architect of British broadcasting" (p. 180)--was appointed general manager of the BBC in the early 1920's. Reith's mission, as Briggs and Burke describe it, was clear: "To have used broadcasting simply as a medium of entertainment, he believed, would have been to 'prostitute' it. He did not wish to offer people merely 'what they wanted'. The BBC had to set standards. 'It should bring into the greatest possible number of homes ... all that is best in every department of human knowledge, endeavour and achievement'" (p. 178). From the beginning, the BBC set out with altruistic goals to benefit all of humanity (within earshot). Some of this refusal to peddle mediocrity stems from the sources of revenue to keep the broadcasts alive: American radio survived on advertisements, while the Brits sustained their airwaves on licensing fees (p. 180). By not relying on "mass culture" (read: selling unnecessary rubbish to simpletons who can't afford it) to power their airwaves, the British broadcasting model could aim for higher purposes. The same held true with TV, it seems, as early television was driven in America more by entertainment-hungry networks than programs that sough to engender cultural, spiritual, or intellectual enlightenment.

That contrast becomes more evident when we consider the "culture" of America as described by Horkheimer and Adorno (2006). "Culture today is infecting everything with sameness," they lament. "Film, radio, and magazines form a system. Every branch of culture is unanimous within itself and all are unanimous together" (p. 41). These authors are sharply critical of the hegemonic and vapid qualities of mass culture under the jurisdiction of monopolies, and are even more scathing of the financial impetus that drives production: "The truth that they are nothing but business is used as an ideology to legitimize the trash they intentionally produce" (p. 42). I feel like I've heard their refrain before from a veritable "Who's who" of Marxists: mediators of power impose their dominant agenda over passive masses, whose seemingly self-generated dependence on communication media ensures their continued enslavement to the autocratically univocal messages that standardize modern culture through omnipresent methods of production. Invoking Kant, Horkheimer and Adorno complain that "the active contribution which Kantian schematism still expected of subjects that they should, from the first, relate sensuous multiplicity to fundamental concepts is denied to the subject by industry" (p. 44). Differences among major companies' products are imperceptible save for brand name alone. Mindless films make us complacent enough to buy into mass culture, which cyclically drives us back to Phillistinic entertainment. I'd be more critical of Horkheimer and Adorno if I didn't think they're right, but we live in a country where Larry the Cable Guy is among both the most popular comedians and beer koozies, so there's nothing left to do but to resign myself with an audible sigh, crack a fresh Bud and pour one out for the dead homies of intellectual enlightenment on this side of the Atlantic.

Enough has been said of H & A this week for me to move on to McLuhan, but before I do I'll lob out a few questions: I wonder how they'd react to social-newsmaking sites like Digg or Reddit that guide the attention of mass produced culture to stories it finds relevant? Are these social digital media merely cyclically reinforcing lowest-common denominator status quos, or is there hope that the democratization that supposedly comes with the Internet can pull us out of the duldrums manufactured by cultural industry? Do we now find ourselves in a supermodern Plato's cave, complacently chained to mediocrity and contented to watching shadows dance on the wall in front of us? Have we accepted cultural industry as reality, and do we want to or could we even handle a true release from mass culture? Is an elitist the one who has stood up and been shown the sun, and that is why s/he pity those still stuck in the cave? "Wouldn't it be said of him that he went up and came back with his eyes corrupted, and that it's not even worth trying to go up? And if they were somehow able to get their hands on and kill the man who attempts to release and lead up, wouldn't they kill him?" (Plato's The Republic, 517a, redirected to my attention via Wikipedia).

On to McLuhan (1962), who writes "[t]hat every generation poised on the edge of massive change should later seem oblivious of the issues and the imminent event would seem natural enough. But it is necessary to understand the power and thrust of technologies to isolate the senses and thus to hypnotize society. The formula for hypnosis is "one sense at a time." And new technology possesses the power to hypnotize because it isolates the senses" (p. 199). I found this discussion more engaging than the well-worn "medium is the message," perhaps because the former hasn't been rehashed to exhaustion by a string of subsequent critics and advocates. Perhaps, if I may draw a connection back to H & A, mass culture continues to buy into cheap, shallow productions of monopolistic media because our senses need to work in tandem in order to perceive the products of the culture industry for what they are. Technology Isolates our senses (beyond the traditional 5, I think McLuhan might allow an extension to include "sense" as "perception" or "awareness") by forcing us to experience cultural reality through highly mediated channels, which have a hypnotizing/pacifying effect on our perceptions. Does that make sense in light of what I wrote above?

Before I move past McLuhan, I feel compelled to bring up a necessary sidebar about him as a household name: <rant> the intro to the first piece calls McLuhan "one of the first true celebrity academics" (p. 193), and I can't let this go untouched as a reference point to the mountains of critical literature built up against him (Ricks, Enzensberger, Baudrillard, Postman, Lanham, etc.). As soon as an academic become successful or popular, or both, other academics immediately resent you and devote themselves to tearing your theories open as false and hollow, exposing your inadequacies for all to see to assert their own importance in the conversation. Academics are cannibals; we feed on the most successful among us to sustain our own research agendas, and McLuhan has certainly provided enough sustenance for his critics (Lanham, for one, thinks he's a no-nothing prick), but such is the price of academic fame. </rant>

Finally, and unfortunately with little reasonable space left for your attention, I come to Walter Benjamin. I drew a parallel between the H & K's critique of culture industry and Benjamin's use of Paul Valery to talk about the convergence of media: "Just as water, gas, and electricity are brought into our houses from far off to satisfy our needs in response to a minimal effort, so we shall be supplied with visual or auditory images, which will appear and disappear at a simple movement of the hand, hardly more than a sign" (as cited in Benjamin, 1968, p. 219). Valery, writing in the late 19th century, anticipated that media would become a utility, but I think the implication here goes beyond that. Mass media as a utility is ostensibly a luxury and a convenience, something we could live without, but so too were electricity and running water at one time, and now we probably think of those as basic necessities of life. What does that say of our culture? What can we observe if we think of mass media in terms of utility, and how might we unpack the various meanings of that term?

To exit, I feel compelled, like Jason, to use Hollywood as thought-provoking closure. In I, Robot (2004), Will Smith's character is a cop in 2035 who has an inherent distrust and disdain for the robots that have become a part of everyday life. Naturally, for the purposes of plot development and conflict, one robot, Sonny, breaks the mold and appears to act out of free will; however, despite its best efforts, this anomaly cannot convince Smith that he is more human than the others--alive, even--because he is mass produced. "You are a clever imitation of life," Smith says, "Can a robot write a symphony? Can a robot take a blank canvas and turn it into a masterpiece?" Unfazed, Sonny replies, "Can you?"