A note on TaskRabbit's current (May 2016) poster campaign on London Underground.
Showing posts with label Marazzi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Marazzi. Show all posts
Saturday, 21 May 2016
Wednesday, 5 September 2012
Media Diversity as the Screen of Capital Uniformity (Barthes Soap-Powders & Detergents).
In 'Soap-Powders and Detergents' (from Mythologies) Barthes works through the, very different, semiotic mechanisms used in the advertising of three washing powders injected into French society in the 1950s (Lux, Persil, and Omo) and the fundamental unity of the three on "the plane of the Anglo-Dutch trust Unilever." We tend to forget that Barthes was a marxist and was deeply concerned with the ways in which capital found its expression in, and organised its control over, semiotic systems. This forgetful reception of Barthes is remarkably similar to the ways in which Benjamin's works are drawn on for over optimistic and non-ethical readings of 'popular-culture' (especially 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction') when even the briefest perusal of 'The Author as Producer' or 'Theses on the Philosophy of History' would show this to be an error.
This forgetfulness of marxism is especially problematic for the study of current media forms because there is so much unity on the plane of capital behind the seeming diversity of our media. It is of course obvious on the level of the mega institutions such as News Corporation but Barthes can help us think through this quality of being unified by the flows of capital 'behind' the media and its texts on a personal and/or individualised basis. For instance Andy Murray, Lewis Hamilton, and Cathy Dennis are all unified with Pop Idol (in its many versions) by the capital flows personified in Simon Fuller (who, of course, also unifies the Spice Girls and S Club 7 and The X Factor and to some extent Simon Cowell on that same plane of capital).
Perhaps the most useful working through of this 'unified by the flows of capital' approach concerns Endemol because of the great diversity of semiotic mechanisms it utilises and the plane of capital that it's diverse products are finally unified on. Endemol (originally a Dutch based TV production company) is probably most famous for Big Brother and its off-shoots but in the UK is also behind Charlie Brooker and his Zeppotron Agent/Production Company. The radical distinction between the semiotic mechanisms utilised by these two parts of the same capital flows cover the essential unity involved. The semiotic contrast between Zeppotron's Dead Set, Screen Wipe, or A Touch of Cloth and Endemol's Deal or no Deal, Million Pound Drop, or Big Brother could not be more different but they are all the same on the plane of capital.
The nature of the plane of capital on which these media products are unified is most interesting. Endemol was partially purchased by one of Silvio Berlusconi's media corporations in 2007 (along with one of its original founders &, seemingly, Goldman Sachs) before a 'debt restructuring deal' in 2012 saw ownership of Endemol dissipate into the ether of financial-capital (RBS seemingly taking a stake). So for five years Charlie Brooker was unified with Silvio Berlusconi on the same plane of capital but now is merely adrift on the miasmic plane of global financial capital.
This forgetfulness of marxism is especially problematic for the study of current media forms because there is so much unity on the plane of capital behind the seeming diversity of our media. It is of course obvious on the level of the mega institutions such as News Corporation but Barthes can help us think through this quality of being unified by the flows of capital 'behind' the media and its texts on a personal and/or individualised basis. For instance Andy Murray, Lewis Hamilton, and Cathy Dennis are all unified with Pop Idol (in its many versions) by the capital flows personified in Simon Fuller (who, of course, also unifies the Spice Girls and S Club 7 and The X Factor and to some extent Simon Cowell on that same plane of capital).
Perhaps the most useful working through of this 'unified by the flows of capital' approach concerns Endemol because of the great diversity of semiotic mechanisms it utilises and the plane of capital that it's diverse products are finally unified on. Endemol (originally a Dutch based TV production company) is probably most famous for Big Brother and its off-shoots but in the UK is also behind Charlie Brooker and his Zeppotron Agent/Production Company. The radical distinction between the semiotic mechanisms utilised by these two parts of the same capital flows cover the essential unity involved. The semiotic contrast between Zeppotron's Dead Set, Screen Wipe, or A Touch of Cloth and Endemol's Deal or no Deal, Million Pound Drop, or Big Brother could not be more different but they are all the same on the plane of capital.
The nature of the plane of capital on which these media products are unified is most interesting. Endemol was partially purchased by one of Silvio Berlusconi's media corporations in 2007 (along with one of its original founders &, seemingly, Goldman Sachs) before a 'debt restructuring deal' in 2012 saw ownership of Endemol dissipate into the ether of financial-capital (RBS seemingly taking a stake). So for five years Charlie Brooker was unified with Silvio Berlusconi on the same plane of capital but now is merely adrift on the miasmic plane of global financial capital.
Saturday, 16 June 2012
The Tory Discourse of 'grand conspiracy theory': a straw man of transnational capital
The Tory Party hates the BBC. They have as yet not found a way of disciplining it (the injection of Carlton into the ITV network as punishment for Thames Television's Death on the Rock had worked perfectly to discipline ITV) and continue to seek out ways of dismembering it and handing over the richest meat to its friends among the transnational corporations. This is not a polemical point just the bare facts.
The Murdoch Organisation (News Corporation and its many aspects - in the UK most especially BSkyB) hates the BBC. They have found no mechanism for drawing away from the BBC the substantial audiences it generates for its programmes and channels and continue to seek out ways of dismembering that audience and handing it over to its advertisers. This is not a polemical point just the bare facts.
James Murdoch's MacTaggart Lecture to the Edinburgh TV Festival in 2009 and Jeremy Hunt's response to that lecture and David Cameron's foreshadowing of some of its demands show the combination of this hatred.
Around the current Leveson Inquiry the myrmidons of this hatred have been building a discourse about the 'grand conspiracy' between the Tory Party and News Corporation to allow by any means the full takeover of BSkyB by News Corporation and how this has not been shown by any of the evidence as yet presented to the Inquiry. The main thrust of David Cameron's evidence was structured along these lines.
However, this is of course not the point. The point is that the restructuring of the capital flows in and around BSkyB is of very limited importance. This is an institution and set of audiences that are already fully integrated into transnational capital and the profits (or perhaps rather rents) from this nexus of consumption are already fully financialised.
No the point of this is that the BBC and the set of audiences around it are not fully integrated into transnational capital. The BBC's peculiar relationship with the people - paid for through taxation - means that the flows of capital in and around it are not perfectly available to transnational capital (they are by no means sealed off from transnational capital they are just more difficult - and thus expensive - to derive a profit/rent from). Annihilating the BBC in its present form would open those flows of profit/rent to transnational capital and allow a full financialization of those audiences and the rents they offer. There would in effect be a massive virgin territory for transnational capital to exploit. News Corporation, through its most significant UK aspect - BSkyB - intended to be the only institution leading the charge to open this territory and thus the only beneficiary from this opening of the new territory. This is the 'grand conspiracy' not the BSkyB takeover side show.
That the Tory Party and News Corporation have been able to construct a discourse about another 'grand conspiracy' theory, their preferred as a straw-man to be swatted away with such ease is down to the ideological apparatus at work inside the media institutions in this country, which have always operated on the basis of the 'propaganda model' described by Herman and Chomsky. An analysis along the lines set out above is unthinkable within the 'media' as typically understood. Not least because, of course, of the position in the relations of productions of media workers. Observing this 'takeover grand conspiracy' straw man being projected into the media is to see all of the ideological systems of capital in the UK at work.
The Murdoch Organisation (News Corporation and its many aspects - in the UK most especially BSkyB) hates the BBC. They have found no mechanism for drawing away from the BBC the substantial audiences it generates for its programmes and channels and continue to seek out ways of dismembering that audience and handing it over to its advertisers. This is not a polemical point just the bare facts.
James Murdoch's MacTaggart Lecture to the Edinburgh TV Festival in 2009 and Jeremy Hunt's response to that lecture and David Cameron's foreshadowing of some of its demands show the combination of this hatred.
Around the current Leveson Inquiry the myrmidons of this hatred have been building a discourse about the 'grand conspiracy' between the Tory Party and News Corporation to allow by any means the full takeover of BSkyB by News Corporation and how this has not been shown by any of the evidence as yet presented to the Inquiry. The main thrust of David Cameron's evidence was structured along these lines.
However, this is of course not the point. The point is that the restructuring of the capital flows in and around BSkyB is of very limited importance. This is an institution and set of audiences that are already fully integrated into transnational capital and the profits (or perhaps rather rents) from this nexus of consumption are already fully financialised.
No the point of this is that the BBC and the set of audiences around it are not fully integrated into transnational capital. The BBC's peculiar relationship with the people - paid for through taxation - means that the flows of capital in and around it are not perfectly available to transnational capital (they are by no means sealed off from transnational capital they are just more difficult - and thus expensive - to derive a profit/rent from). Annihilating the BBC in its present form would open those flows of profit/rent to transnational capital and allow a full financialization of those audiences and the rents they offer. There would in effect be a massive virgin territory for transnational capital to exploit. News Corporation, through its most significant UK aspect - BSkyB - intended to be the only institution leading the charge to open this territory and thus the only beneficiary from this opening of the new territory. This is the 'grand conspiracy' not the BSkyB takeover side show.
That the Tory Party and News Corporation have been able to construct a discourse about another 'grand conspiracy' theory, their preferred as a straw-man to be swatted away with such ease is down to the ideological apparatus at work inside the media institutions in this country, which have always operated on the basis of the 'propaganda model' described by Herman and Chomsky. An analysis along the lines set out above is unthinkable within the 'media' as typically understood. Not least because, of course, of the position in the relations of productions of media workers. Observing this 'takeover grand conspiracy' straw man being projected into the media is to see all of the ideological systems of capital in the UK at work.
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