AC640: Public SphereWeek 2

Communication and Society--Contemporary Issues

Foucault, hooks, Chomsky

(actual Foucault action figure on right from David Gauntlett’s theory.org.uk site)

key conceptsFoucault:• power/knowledge• poststructuralism• will to power• negative and positive models of power• panopticon (all-seeing space)

hooks:• reformist and revolutionary feminism

Chomsky• the propaganda model (the five filters)

introducing “communication and society:

contemporary issues” • this week’s material is offered as a brief review of contemporary theorists of

relevance to the understanding of political communication• the theorists are:

the late philosopher Michel Foucault, the African-American feminist theorist bell hooks, the linguist and political activist, Noam Chomsky

• this week’s authors update and complement themes that were introduced by the ancient and historical authors offered last week:

the nature of power in the modern world (Foucault) identity and politics (hooks)

communication and social change (Chomsky)

order of appearance

(1) Foucault• discourse: what is it and why it matters• the connection with Nietzsche• the nature of power in the modern world (with example of nationalism)• podcast

(2) Hooks• feminism and social change

(3) Chomsky• the propaganda model

(4) Unit notes overview• podcast

1. Who is Michel Foucault?(1926-1984)

• Foucault is identified with an intellectual movement called “post-structuralism,” which follows structuralism (semiotics) and rejects many of its assumptions; he is also identified with postmodern perspectives, though he is too complex to be easily categorized

• Foucault was greatly influenced by Louis Althusser, who was his lifelong friend, and was also influenced by Marxism, phenomenology, and the work of Friedrich Nietzsche

• during the 1970s and early 1980s, Foucault’s many books (including The History of Sexuality, Madness and Civilization, and Discipline and Punish) were being read and discussed around the world

• Foucault is probably the most influential philosopher, and one of the most influential thinkers in general, in second half of the 20th century

Foucault and discourse: definitions in support of Foucault’s view of discourse

• “A discourse can be thought of as a way of describing, defining, classifying, and thinking about people, things, and even knowledge and abstract systems of thought.”

Philip Smith, Cultural Theory: An Introduction

• “A discourse is a group of statements which provide a language for talking about a particular kind of knowledge about a topic. When statements about a topic are made within a particular discourse, the discourse makes it possible to construct the topic in a certain way. It also limits the other ways in which the topic can be constructed.”

Stuart Hall, “The West and the Rest: Discourse and Power”

• “A discourse is a socially produced way of talking or thinking about a topic. It is defined by reference to the area of social experience that it makes sense of, to the social location from which that sense is made, and to the linguistic or signifying system by which that sense is both made and circulated.... A discourse is then a socially located way of making sense of an important area of social experience.”

John Fiske's essay, “British Cultural Studies and Television”

What does discourse mean to Foucault?• discourses are not simple words or phrases, but the larger pattern by which we talk

about a given subject, e.g., the discourse of education, the discourse of sexuality, the discourse of politics

• when we thus make a statement, e.g., make a speech in class, our thoughts and words enter into that pre-existing discourse, and we shape them and are interpreted in turn in light of that larger established pattern

• we we don’t speak “discourse”; rather, discourses speak through us

• in keeping with its origins in structuralism and poststructuralism, the concept of “discourse” suggests that the act of communicating at the general level of society – the way a society talks about something, such as sex, war, gender, etc. – literally creates or brings that “something” into being

• the concept of “discourse” makes room -- in a way that the concept of ideology does not -- for the role of language in maintaining “frameworks” for reality

What are the features of discourse as Foucault sees it?

• a discourse does not begin with a single speaker, but is the product of many kinds of communication and many speakers over time

• discourses “position” individuals (i.e., to use Althusser’s term, they “interpellate” speakers) and “speak” us, rather than us speaking them

• discourses are not closed systems, but draw on other discourses, binding them within a network of meanings

• discourses transcend the interests of a given group or class, though they do act to structure the world in a particular way and have a particular relationship to power

• discourses are neither true nor false; the real issue is whether they are effective in influencing our thoughts, feelings and behaviour

power/knowledge: its inspiration in the Nietzschean idea of power

• Foucault inherits his concept of power from the late 19th century philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900; see image on left)

• Nietzsche argued that what he termed the “will to power” was the basis of human society

• we normally see power in “negative” terms: that is, we think of power as something that negates, represses, destroys, etc.

• Nietzsche argued that power is “positive” too, insofar as power creates new categories or phenomena in culture

• example of the creation of a “terrorist” through endless words, pictures, etc. in our culture today

discourse and power as Foucault sees it:the power/knowledge thesis

• according to Foucault, power does not originate in a single person, a class, or the state, but is rather a general and diffuse phenomenon circulating through society

• knowledge is not linked to truth, as the Enlightenment promised, but to power

• Foucault calls this “power/knowledge,” and it’s his way of explaining how power expresses itself through discourse

• we learn about things, or create knowledge, not just to understand them, but rather also in order to control those things

• discourses represent knowledge about the subject under consideration, e.g., credit agencies and banks collect information about our credit worthiness; spy agencies use satellites to survey in great detail what is happening on ground

• the power/knowledge problem is strongly identified with surveillance and how we become

accustomed to living in a society where surveillance is everywhere

• example of power/knowledge in history: Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt (see next slide and podcast)

Napoleon in Egypt: “power/knowledge” (1798)

medieval power vs. modern power

• in the medieval, social control was exerted in an extremely public and overt way, i.e. through public execution, drawing and quartering, and even back as far as ancient Romans, to throwing people to the lions

• in the modern world, however, power was exerted in quiet, private, and subtle ways, and with the massive assistance of communication technologies; here we see the perversion of reason

• the panopticon represents the new face of power in the modern -- and one can readily argue -- the contemporary “postmodern” world

Canadian nationalism: exercise in Foucaultian analysis

Watch the famous Molson’s ad:

I am Canadian

1. What is nationalism and how does it constitute a discourse?

2. How does it “interpellate” us?3. What other discourses does it draw

upon?4. How does it influence how we see

and articulate ourselves?5. How does the cultural phenomenon

it creates represent the positive model of power?

Power/knowledge?

2. Who is bell hooks?

• African-American feminist born Gloria Watkind (1952-); hooks is her professional name

• prolific author and cultural critic; primary concern to address gender and race in American culture

• she is one of the most visible and well-known American feminist authors

• she is a critic of colour-blind and class-insensitive nature of women’s movement

• author of books like Teaching to Transgress, Outlaw Culture, and Feminism is for Everybody

• Wikipedia reference for hooks

summary of points in excerpt from Feminism is for Everybody - 1

• this is a brief excerpt from hooks’ book, Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate Politics

• hooks begins by defining feminism in a way that doesn’t put the burden of action exclusively on women or the blame for the problem on men: feminism is “a movement to end sexism”

• this expands the meaning of feminism in a wa:

that doesn’t blame men exclusively for sexism that sees it as a systemic problem (rather than deriving from the individual

behaviour of men or women acting in a sexist way) allows that women may also be sexist also

we misunderstand feminism because we typically learn about it as interpreted through what hooks defines as a “patriarchal mass media”

summary of points in excerpt from Feminism is for Everybody - 2

• acknowledging that media treatment of feminism has problems, hooks then seeks to revise our understanding of feminism

• hooks argues that there are two distinct feminisms:(i) reformist feminism: this feminism seeks to achieve the equality of women

with men within contemporary society as it is currently• this is the form of feminism that gets significant media attention because,

while it brings positive changes, it doesn’t challenge society’s sexist foundation

(i) revolutionary feminism: this feminism seeks to change contemporary society’s sexist structure, insofar as reform feminism doesn’t substantially affect the patriarchal nature of society

• this is the form of feminism highly favoured in academic scholarship, but that is rarely communicated to the larger public

• hooks argues that feminism needs to find its focus again, and return to its “simple yet powerful message that feminism is a movement to end sexist oppression”

hooks quote:Rockwell’s “Rosie the Riveter” painting below

(1943)

“Feminist politics is losing momentum because the feminist movement has lost clear definition. We have those definitions. Let’s reclaim them.”

Hooks, Feminism is for Everybody

3. Chomsky and the propaganda model

• born in 1928 in Philadelphia• Studied linguistics at the University

of Pennsylvania, and has been a professor at MIT since 1955

• revolutionized our understanding of linguistics through his “transformational grammar”

• is better known in communication studies for his work on politics and media, notably his “propaganda model” of media

• very prolific; especially active as a critic of American government and foreign policy, and takes a view of things from the political left

the propaganda model: the basic argument

• this is an excerpt from Chomsky’s famous 1988 book, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (co-written with Edward Herman)

• Chomsky’s thesis is this:(1) we believe that the Western media system is free, democratic, and diverse with

respect to the range of opinion and ideology there(2) however, there is embedded in this media system a sophisticated five-part

mechanism -- what Chomsky calls the “propaganda model” -- by which the media’s range is significantly narrowed

(3) the propaganda model transforms the substantial output of Western media into “propaganda” insofar as this actual narrow range of opinion serves to support dominant ideological views of society, while excluding dissident opinions and information

(4) this propaganda model works despite the best intentions of journalists to do their work well; in that sense, it represents a systemic bias, rather than being the product of journalists or producers with a personal bias as to the nature of reality

the five filters

(1) Media ownership(2) Advertising(3) Expert commentary(4) Attacks by media think tanks,

pundits, etc. (flak)(5) Anti-communism (now “anti-

terrorism”, which serves the same function as did communism in American culture in 1988 when Chomsky first published the book)

• Chomsky’s excerpt here addresses only the media ownership filter in detail

quote from Chomsky’s more recent book on media, Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of

Propaganda (2002, second ed.)• “The point of public relations

slogans like ‘Support our troops’ is that they don't mean anything... That's the whole point of good propaganda. You want to create a slogan that nobody's going to be against, and everybody's going to be for. Nobody knows what it means, because it doesn't mean anything. Its crucial value is that it diverts your attention from a question that does mean something: Do you support our policy? That's the one you're not allowed to talk about.”

“manufacturing consent”: the action of the five filters

• the five filters function as a means to the manufacture of “consent” -- that is, the public’s willing support of this narrow range of opinion and information

• the term “manufacturing consent” comes from the work of early 20th century conservative critic, Walter Lippmann, who first used the phrase in his book, Public Opinion (see Ewen chapter in 640 course package)

• Chomsky has given us a realistic and detailed description of how ideology is created, and how what he believes to be the illusion of a free and plural media system is sustained

• the media is typically described by conservatives as a “liberal” media; Chomsky argues that this acts as a check on the media’s critical ability, as it makes media fearful of seeming too liberal in outlook

• critics of the propaganda model that it simplies the news production process, underrepresents the ideological diversity of media, and suggests a

conspiratorial view of how media works

questions for discussion (based on readings and unit notes)

(1) Foucault’s ideas are complex and abstract. That said, what does he have to teach us about the real world of political communication? What do we have to learn from him?

(2) Hooks in interested, as her writing indicates, to bring feminist ideas into the mainstream of society. What does feminism mean today, and how might feminists better communicate their ideas in light of what hooks describes as the patriarchal nature of the media?

(3) Is Chomsky’s propaganda model persuasive as a means to explain how our media culture is constructed?

(4) Homer-Dixon’s “ingenuity gap” argument suggests that the world has become too complex to be understood. How do we simplify the systems by which we live, and the media through which we explain that world, while still accommodating the actual complexity of reality?