1. SOCIAL WEB MEDIA CONSTITUENTS OF A THEORY OF THE MEDIA HANS MAGNUS ENZENSBERGER - 1970 AL LARSEN SPRING 2010

2. Page numbers refer to the essay as published in The New Media Reader.

3. Enzensberger – b 1929 German poet critic etc.

4. Marxist perspective base & superstructure

5. SUPERSTRUCTURE BASE

6. The base is traditionally said to consist of the forces and relations of production. [...] The superstructure is traditionally said to be made up of things like political systems, religion – and the media. introduction Wardrip-Fruin / Montfort

7. (Habermas's discussion of the bourgeois public sphere arising in the 18 th Century)

8. CULTURE -------------- PRODUCTION

9. CULTURE -------------- PRODUCTION QUESTION: relationship between: changes in the last 50 years in the image of a normal family -------------- changes in workplace demands

10. THE MEDIA BUSINESS THE CONSCIOUSNESS INDUSTRY

11. WHAT DOES IT PRODUCE? HOW?

12. Everett Collection/Rex Features

13. image: Life

14. Constituents of a Theory of the Media Electronic media circa 1970 new satellites cable tv cassettes videotape videotape recorders photocopy machines timesharing computers

15. Emancipatory potential of the electronic media.

16. Emancipatory potential of the electronic media. Sees this potential as being held back because it is politically threatening.

17. Emancipatory? see p. 261 The Mobilizing Power of the Media

18. (p 261) mobility freedom

19. p. 261 Anyone who thinks of the masses only as the object of politics cannot mobilize them. He wants to push them around. A parcel is not mobile; it can only be pushed to and fro. Marches, columns, parades, immobilize people. Propaganda, which does not release self- reliance but limits it, fits into the same pattern. It leads to depoliticization.

20. For Enzensberger the potential lies in participation.

21. For the first time in history the, the media are making possible mass participation in a social and socialized productive process... (p 262)

22. For Enzensberger the potential lies in participation. For the first time in history the, the media are making possible mass participation in a social and socialized productive process, the practical means of which are in the hands of the masses themselves. (p 262)

23. In its present form, equipment like television or film does not serve communication but prevents it. (p 262)

24. IMAGE

25. circuit reversal

26. REFLECTIVE OF A SOCIAL DIVISON BETWEEN PRODUCERS AND CONSUMERS

27. PRODUCERS / CONSUMERS RULERS / RULED

29. image: buycostumes.com

30. ABC / CBS / NBC - REPUBLICANS / DEMOCRATS

31. ABC / CBS / NBC - REPUBLICANS / DEMOCRATS In both cases marginal differences in their platforms reflect a competitive relationship which on essential questions is nonexistent. (p 262)

33. Minimal independent activity on the part of the voter/viewer is desired. (p 262)

35. Societies in the late industrial age rely on the free exchange of information... Quarantine regulations for information, such as were promulgated by fascism and Stalinism, are only possible today at the cost of deliberate industrial regression. (p 262 - 263)

36. Wikipedia Image: The Rhodesia Herald of 21 September 1966 shows the effect of censorship imposed by Van der Byl's ministry.

37. The Soviet bureaucracy [...] has to deny itself almost entirely an elementary piece of organizational equipment, the duplicating machine...

38. TOPICS TO COME BACK TO: Filtered Internet (China, others) Facebook as described in NY Times article cute cat theory of digital activism

39. MEDIA MANIPULATION

40. image: adbusters.org

42. For Enzensberger all media productions are manipulative...

43. it's largely a problem of the limitations on who gets to do the manipulating.

44. The question is therefore not whether the media are manipulated, but who manipulates them. A revolutionary plan should not require the manipulators to disappear; on the contrary it must make everyone a manipulator. (p 265)

45. The contradiction between producers and consumers is not inherent in the electronic media; on the contrary it has to be artificially reinforced by economic and administrative measures. (p 266)

46. Radio telephony (many-to-many media) is technically achieveable but lacking in licensed bandwidth (1970) Broadcast television (centralized media) is given more spectrum. (p 266)

47. Screenshot: zyra.org

48. https://microphones.audiolinks.com/Articles/images/MicDia gram2B.jpg

49. Implications?

50. ISOLATED USE OF MEDIA: HOBBYIST / TINKERER HOME USE

51. ISOLATED USE OF MEDIA: HOME MOVIES HAM RADIO

52. QSL CARD (CONFIRMATION OF RECEIVING TRANSMISSION)

53. ...the individal, so long as he remains isolated, can become [...] at best an amateur but not a producer. (p 266)

54. Any socialist strategy for the media must, on the contrary, strive to end the isolation of the individual participants from the social learning and production process. (p 267)

55. Think in terms of the SOCIAL AUDIENCE... COMMUNITY... PARTICIPATION...

56. By what standards is the work of the amateur judged?

57. The poor, feeble, and frequecntly humiliating results of this licensed activity are often referred to with contempt by the professional media producers.

58. LO-FI AESTHETICS?

60. EMANCIPATION? HOW?

61. organized not just transmitting and receiving

62. Cameras, recorders, in the workplace, school, etc....everywhere where there is social conflict.

63. ...a mass newspaper, written and distributed by its readers, a video network of politically active groups. (p 267)

64. Indymedia open publishing collectively-produced alternative journalism

65. Indymedia started: 1999 – Anti-WTO Protests in Seattle local sites / collectives all around the world

68. COPWATCH

69. 1991 Police abuse of Rodney King caught on videotape by George Holiday

71. (Police officers acquitted)