Christian Fuchs - Communication and Capitalism: A Critical Theory

Communication and Capitalism:

A Critical Theory

Christian Fuchs

Critical, Digital and Social Media Studies

Series Editor: Christian Fuchs

The peer-reviewed book series edited by Christian Fuchs publishes books that critically study the role of the internet and digital and social media in society. Titles analyse how power structures, digital capitalism, ideology and social struggles shape and are shaped by digital and social media. They use and develop critical theory discussing the political relevance and implications of studied topics. The series is a theoretical forum for internet and social media research for books using methods and theories that challenge digital positivism; it also seeks to explore digital media ethics grounded in critical social theories and philosophy.

Editorial Board

Thomas Allmer, Mark Andrejevic, Miriyam Aouragh, Charles Brown, Melanie Dulong de Rosnay, Eran Fisher, Peter Goodwin, Jonathan Hardy, Kylie Jarrett, Anastasia Kavada, Arwid Lund, Maria Michalis, Stefania Milan, Vincent Mosco, Safiya Noble, Jack Qiu, Jernej Amon Prodnik, Sarah Roberts, Marisol Sandoval, Sebastian Sevignani, Pieter Verdegem, Bingqing Xia, Mariano Zukerfeld

Published

Critical Theory of Communication: New Readings of Lukcs, Adorno, Marcuse, Honneth and Habermas in the Age of the Internet

Christian Fuchs

https://doi.org/10.16997/book1

Knowledge in the Age of Digital Capitalism: An Introduction to Cognitive Materialism

Mariano Zukerfeld

https://doi.org/10.16997/book3

Politicizing Digital Space: Theory, the Internet, and Renewing Democracy

Trevor Garrison Smith

https://doi.org/10.16997/book5

Capital, State, Empire: The New American Way of Digital Warfare

Scott Timcke

https://doi.org/10.16997/book6

The Spectacle 2.0: Reading Debord in the Context of Digital Capitalism

Edited by Marco Briziarelli and Emiliana Armano

https://doi.org/10.16997/book11

The Big Data Agenda: Data Ethics and Critical Data Studies

Annika Richterich

https://doi.org/10.16997/book14

Social Capital Online: Alienation and Accumulation

Kane X. Faucher

https://doi.org/10.16997/book16

The Propaganda Model Today: Filtering Perception and Awareness

Edited by Joan Pedro-Caraana, Daniel Broudy and Jeffery Klaehn

https://doi.org/10.16997/book27

Critical Theory and Authoritarian Populism

Edited by Jeremiah Morelock

https://doi.org/10.16997/book30

Peer to Peer: The Commons Manifesto

Michel Bauwens, Vasilis Kostakis, and Alex Pazaitis

https://doi.org/10.16997/book33

Bubbles and Machines: Gender, Information and Financial Crises

Micky Lee

https://doi.org/10.16997/book3

Cultural Crowdfunding: Platform Capitalism, Labour, and Globalization

Edited by Vincent Rouz

https://doi.org/10.16997/book38

The Condition of Digitality: A Post-Modern Marxism for the Practice of Digital Life

Robert Hassan

https://doi.org/10.16997/book44

Incorporating the Digital Commons: Corporate Involvement in Free and Open Source Software

Benjamin J. Birkinbine

https://doi.org/10.16997/book39

The Internet Myth: From the Internet Imaginary to Network Ideologies

Paolo Bory

https://doi.org/10.16997/book48

Communication and Capitalism:

A Critical Theory

Christian Fuchs

University of Westminster Press

www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk

Published by

University of Westminster Press

115 New Cavendish Street

London W1W 6UW

www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk

Text Christian Fuchs 2020

First published 2020

Cover design: www.ketchup-productions.co.uk

Series cover concept: Mina Bach (minabach.co.uk)

Print and digital versions typeset by Siliconchips Services Ltd.

ISBN (Paperback): 978-1-912656-71-4

ISBN (PDF): 978-1-912656-72-1

ISBN (EPUB): 978-1-912656-73-8

ISBN (Kindle): 978-912656-74-5

DOI: https://doi.org/10.16997/book45

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 444 Castro Street, Suite 900, Mountain View, California, 94041, USA. This license allows for copying and distributing the work, providing author attribution is clearly stated, that you are not using the material for commercial purposes, and that modified versions are not distributed.

The full text of this book has been peer-reviewed to ensure high academic standards. For full review policies, see: http://www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/publish. Competing interests: The author has no competing interests to declare.

Suggested citation: Fuchs, C. 2020. Communication and

Capitalism: A Critical Theory

London: University of Westminster Press.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.16997/book45 License: CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0

To read the free, open access version of this book online, visit https://doi.org/10.16997/book45 or scan this QR code with your mobile device:

This book is dedicated to the memory of my father Gerhard Fuchs (2 September 19489 October 2018).

Keep on rockin!

Over the years, I have had the privilege to work together with outstanding human beings, for which I am very grateful. They include: Marisol Sandoval, Thomas Allmer, Sebastian Sevignani, Wolfgang Hofkirchner, Dimitris Boucas, David Chandler, Eran Fisher, Pete Goodwin, Denise Rose Hansen, Anastasia Kavada, Manfred Knoche, Verena Kreilinger, Andrew Lockett, Arwid Lund, Maria Michalis, Lara Monticelli, Vincent Mosco, Yuqi Na, Jack Qiu, Daniel Trottier, Pieter Verdegem, Frank Welz.

MECW: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Collected Works . London: Lawrence & Wishart.

CHAPTER 1

This book presents an introduction to the critical theory of communication. It asks:

What is communication?

What are communications roles in society?

What does it mean to study communication critically based on a materialist approach (communicative materialism)?

What are the roles of communication in capitalism?

What alternatives are there to capitalist communication?

At the time of and in the years after the student rebellions of 1968, socialist politics and radical theory were flourishing. Activists and especially young people were seeking alternative ways of life and perspectives that pointed beyond capitalism and imperialist wars. The New Left was a movement for socialism that strongly influenced politics and culture in the 1960s and 1970s. Reading and interpreting Marxs theory was back then an important part of academia and activism. Activists tried to put Marxs theory into praxis.

But the 1970s also saw a major economic crisis and as a consequence the rise of neoliberal politics that aimed at the commodification of everythingoperating under the control of neoliberal managers who have seen students as fee-paying customers yielding profits, knowledge as an instrument of capital, and academics as machines producing outputs, impacts, and grants. Under these conditions, Marxs approach was over decades presented as a failed theory and socialism as a failed model of society corresponding to Marxist theory.