Critical Theory Of Communication Research Articles

The Dialectical Sociology of Michel Freitag and the Critique of Communication Society

Michel Freitag developed a ground-breaking sociological theory synthesizing the thought of sociology’s founders into the form of a dialectical sociology that conceives of the symbolic as ontological to social reality. After outlining his conceptualization of the historical evolution of society through its ‘modes of reproduction’, we will see how his analysis of contemporary societal transformations rests on a critical theory of communication and technology that, while entering a dialogue with the works of the Frankfurt school, especially those of Habermas, seeks to overcome their inherent contradictions. According to Freitag, the development of capitalist globalization alters the very substance of society as it tends to morph itself into a self-regulating cybernetic system. His sociology allows us to apprehend phenomena tied to the development of contemporary digital technologies such as the drive towards a new form of algorithmic governmentality fueled by digital oligopolies that increasingly dominate globalized capitalism, the rise of fake news in the era of post-truth and the transformation of subjectivity. Finally, his critique enables potent reflection on the dialectical possibilities of overcoming the dynamics of contemporary alienation.

The "Survival Pending Revolution" COVID-19 vaccination campaign: an example of critical communication theory in action.

We carried out a two-phase, qualitative evaluation of a novel public health campaign to promote COVID-19 vaccination among youth and young adults of color (YOC), called Survival Pending Revolution. The campaign, commissioned by California's Department of Public Health, was created by YOC spoken word artists, under the direction of the organization, Youth Speaks. In phase 1, we describe the communication attributes of the campaign's nine video-poems, coded the content of the pieces, and applied thematic analysis to describe the themes conveyed. In phase 2, we carried out a comparative health communication study to assess the content's potential value. We exposed a sample of the target audience (YOC) to the content of Survival Pending Revolution and a widely viewed comparator campaign (The Conversation). Using a focus group, we solicited participants' views using a semi-structured approach. Using thematic analysis, we summarized the reactions that arose when participants reflected on the attributes of each campaign. Findings from phase 1 reveal how engaging YOC artists who embrace Youth Speaks' philosophy of harnessing "life as primary text" resulted in content that is aligned with critical communication theory, focusing on structural determinants of health, including themes of overcoming oppressive systems, health and social inequities, and medical discrimination and mistrust. Findings from phase 2 reveal that this arts-based campaign based on such critical communication theory, when compared to a more traditional campaign, promotes message salience, fosters emotional engagement, and provides a form of validation among historically oppressed groups such that they may be more open to, and potentially act on, the COVID-19 vaccination communications to which they are exposed. As an example of critical communication, the Survival Pending Revolution campaign encourages health-promoting behavioral decisions while calling out the structural determinants of health that shape risks of exposure and constrain free choice. Engaging uniquely gifted members of marginalized populations as creators and messengers of campaigns lead to content that is aligned with a critical communication approach, whose goal is to aid disparity populations in both resisting and navigating systems that continue to locate them on the margins of society. Our evaluation of this campaign suggests that it represents a promising formative and interventional approach to engendering trust in public health messaging and promoting health equity.

ORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNICATIONS ON THE MEANING OF A CRITICAL APPROACH TO FEMINISTIC THEORY

A critical theory of communication (or economics, or politics) needs to involve a critique of society as a whole. Critical communication theory deals with a variety of relevant topics, including language, organizational structure, interpersonal relations, and the media. Communication itself according to a critical perspective is a result of the pressure (tension) between individual creativity in providing a framework for messages and social constraints. Development in the millennium era The Millennium Development Goals (MDG's) have one of the goals of which is towards the equal partnership of men and women by increasing justice and gender equality in every development sector. However, the problem of gender inequality is indicated by the low quality of life and the role of women, the high number of acts of violence against women as measured by the Gender-related Development Index (GDI) and the Gender Empowerment Index (GEM). The research method used is qualitative in a literature review approach

Letter from the Editors

Letter from the Editors

Small Data Theorizing

AbstractSmall data theorizing encompasses the ways communities of collaborators deliberate over the status of data through a set of three mediational logics that pose alternatives to datafication. Small data theorizing is a way of generalizing a framework for understanding the role of the collaborators in digital archiving and database design processes, which often involve both communication researchers and ordinary institutions, such as universities and museums. This framework for mediational logics extends the critiques of big data theory, and its monolithic claims about autonomous technologies and power in society, by elaborating the ways people actively maintain their connectedness to data in archival design. At the same time, it joins critical communication theory’s central concerns about power with a praxis. This can help all communication researchers in seeing how communities are theorizing practical alternatives to archives that are designed for big data and their ecosystems.

Towards a critical theory of communication as renewal and update of Marxist humanism in the age of digital capitalism

AbstractThis paper's task is to outline some foundations of a critical, Marxist‐humanist theory of communication in the age of digital capitalism. It theorises the role of communication in society, communication and alienation, communication in social struggles, social struggles for democratic communication, the contradictions of digital capitalism, and struggles for digital socialist humanism.Marxist humanism is a counter‐narrative, counter‐theory, and counter‐politics to neoliberalism, new authoritarianism, and postmodernism. A critical theory of communication can should draw on this intellectual tradition. Communication and work stand in a dialectical relationship. Communication mediates, organises and is the process of the production of sociality and therefore of the reproduction of society. Society and communication are in class and capitalist societies shaped by the antagonism between instrumental and co‐operative reason. Authoritarianism and humanism are two basic, antagonistic modes of organisation of society and communication. Instrumental reason creates and universalises alienation.Digital capitalism is a dimension of contemporary society where digital technologies such as the computer, the Internet, the mobile phone, tablets, robots, and AI‐driven (“smart”) technologies mediate the accumulation of capital, influence, and reputation. A Marxist‐humanist theory of communication aims to inform struggles for a good, commons‐based, public Internet in a good, commons‐based society that has a vivid, democratic public sphere.

Erich Fromm and the Critical Theory of Communication

Erich Fromm (1900–1980) was a Marxist psychoanalyst, philosopher, and socialist humanist. This article asks: How can Fromm’s critical theory of communication be used and updated to provide a critical perspective in the age of digital and communicative capitalism? In order to provide an answer, this article discusses elements from Fromm’s work that allow us to better understand the human communication process. The focus is on communication (the second section), ideology (the third section), and technology (the fourth section). Fromm’s approach can inform a critical theory of communication in multiple respects: His notion of the social character allows to underpin such a theory with foundations from critical psychology. Fromm’s distinction between the authoritarian and the humanistic character can be used for discerning among authoritarian and humanistic communication. Fromm’s work can also inform ideology critique: the ideology of having shapes life, thought, language, and social action in capitalism. In capitalism, technology (including computing) is fetishized and the logic of quantification shapes social relations. Fromm’s quest for humanist technology and participatory computing can inform contemporary debates about digital capitalism and its alternatives.

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

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

Individualno planirana nastava u svjetlu savremenih didaktičkih teorija

It is possible to more fully clarify the major theoretical foundations on which individualised teaching rests in the context of the key tenets of contemporary didactic theories, whose orientations are very different, even contradictory. The essential characteristics of individually planned teaching, especially those concerning the teacher's prominent role in the planning, preparation, execution, and evaluation of the teaching, can be grounded in the theoretical foundations of the cybernetics and the information theory, whose orientation is objectivist and positivist. It is mostly up to the teacher to make decisions regarding individually planned teaching processes, which are not as algorithmized as the postulates of the cybernetics and the information theory. Since individually planned teaching is a communication process that should be made as interactive as possible to maximise its effectiveness, aspects of it can be based on elements of Reiner Winkel's critical communication theory, whose orientation is materialist and instrumentalist. Individually planned teaching seeks to emancipate and socialise all students as individuals, with the aim of their reaching their full potential. This is achievable if students are approached holistically, through individualised study and the teacher's effective instruction is within the 'zone of proximal development,' compounded with constant formative evaluation. These requirements agree with the premises of critical constructivism, the theory of confluent learning, the theory of targeted teaching, and the developmental learning theory, whose orientation is individualistic and interactivist. After a detailed explication of the characteristics of individually planned teaching as grounded in the postulates of the above-listed theories, given in the paper is a detailed overview of all theoretical propositions, with a brief critical review and possible open questions.

Henri Lefebvre’s Theory of the Production of Space and the Critical Theory of Communication

This article asks how Henri Lefebvre’s humanist Marxism can contribute to the foundations of a critical theory of communication. It does so by reflecting on the role of communication in Lefebvre’s books The Production of Space and The Critique of Everyday Life. Lefebvre’s humanist Marxist stress on the role of human production in society is the aspect of his theory that can be most fruitfully integrated into a critical theory of communication. There are also striking parallels between Lefebvre and Raymond Williams’ cultural materialism. Lefebvre also anticipated discussions of the commodification of the communicative commons.

Towards a Critical Theory of Communication with Georg Lukács and Lucien Goldmann

This work contributes to the foundations of a post-Habermasian critical theory of communication. It uncovers and makes visible undiscovered, forgotten, repressed and hidden elements of Marxian theories that can contribute to grounding foundations of a critical theory of communication. What elements for a critical theory of communication can we find in Lukács’ major aesthetic work Die Eigenart des Ästhetischen (The Specificity of the Aesthetic) and Lucien Goldmann’s works? Lukács and Goldmann are two representatives of Hegelian humanist Marxism. Their stress on the importance of the human being and social production in society makes their theories particularly interesting for an analysis of the role of communication in society and capitalism. Lukács and Goldmann provide perspectives on foundational questions of a critical theory of communication. These include the dialectical relationship of subject and object, communication as production, the dialectic of communicative production and the production of communication, communication as dialectic of thought and language and dialectic of nature and society mediated by three sign systems, ideology as the reduction of humans and society to the first sign system, ideology as contradiction of actual and potential consciousness, capitalist media as creators of reified consciousness, and the struggle for alternative communications.

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

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

Critical theory of communication: New readings of Lukács, Adorno, Marcuse, Honneth and Habermas in the age of the internet, Christian Fuchs

<i>Critical theory of communication: New readings of Lukács, Adorno, Marcuse, Honneth and Habermas in the age of the internet</i>, Christian Fuchs

The Praxis School’s Marxist Humanism and Mihailo Marković’s Theory of Communication

Mihailo Marković (1923–2010) was one of the leading members of the Yugoslav Praxis Group. Among other topics, he worked on the theory of communication and dialectical meaning, which makes his approach relevant for a contemporary critical theory of communication. This paper asks: How did Mihailo Marković conceive of communication? Marković turned towards Serbian nationalism and became the Vice-President of the Serbian Socialist Party. Given that nationalism is a particular form of ideological communication, an ideological anti-praxis that communicates the principle of nationhood, a critical theory of communication also needs to engage with aspects of ideology and nationalism. This paper therefore also asks whether there is a nationalist potential in Marković’s theory in particular or even in Marxist humanism in general. For providing answers to these questions, the article revisits Yugoslav praxis philosophy, the concepts of praxis, communication, ideology and nationalism. It shows the importance of a full humanism and the pitfalls of truncated humanism in critical theory in general and the critical theory of communication in particular. Taking into account complete humanism, the paper introduces the concept of praxis communication.

Critical Theory of Communication as Critical Sociology of Critique in the Age of Digital Capitalism

Abstract THIS ESSAY IS A REFLECTION ON JAN LØHMANN STEPHENSEN’S REVIEW ESSAY ON MY BOOK CULTURE AND ECONOMY IN THE AGE OF SOCIAL MEDIA (CONJUNCTIONS, VOL. 2, NO. 2). IT CONTRASTS CREATIVITY AND SOCIAL PRODUCTION IN MARX’S THEORY, CLARIFIES MY RELATIONSHIP TO BOLTANSKI AND CHIAPELLO’S APPROACH, REFLECTS ON THE INFLUENCE OF HUMANIST MARXISM ON MY THOUGHT, AND ARGUES FOR GROUNDING MEDIA/COMMUNICATION STUDIES AND DIGITAL MEDIA RESEARCH IN CRITICAL THEORY, UNDERSTOOD AS A CRITICAL SOCIOLOGY OF CRITIQUE THAT COMBINES SOCIAL THEORY, EMPIRICAL SOCIAL RESEARCH AND ETHICS.

Sociedad de la Información: Elementos para pensar una Teoría Crítica de la Comunicación y la Cultura

We present a set of economic-cultural critical assumptions in order to think of the objects that, in the emancipatory tradition, they could problematize a Critical Theory of Communication and Culture in the context of the called Information Society, by strengthening their heuristic value and objectifying the scene of the cultural recent domination.

Analyzing relational sources of power at the interorganizational communication system

Based on the critical theory of communication, managing stakeholder relations is significant to achieve more democratic decisions that reconcile diverse interests of various stakeholders. However, power inequalities among stakeholders might inhibit to achieve finely balanced decisions. More interestingly, these inequalities might emerge from the nature of communication among organizations. Conceptualizing interorganizational relations (IORs) as the relations of an organization with its stakeholders, the current study attempts to analyze the relational sources of power. Following a graph theoretical methodology, the frequency of interaction and trust were analyzed as the relational sources of power on a sample of 76 logistics firms. The findings of the study reveal that an organization’s frequency of interaction and level of trustworthiness affect its power over other organizations.

Lotman’s scientific investigatory boldness: The semiosphere as a critical theory of communication in culture

The main focus of this article is the analysis of the concept of semiosphereas it has emerged from the conception of culture as information — instead of describing the transmission of messages from A to B, it is based on the general process of meaning generation. Following Lotman’s criticism on the paradoxes in communication and its theoretical domain, the article confronts the paradoxical concepts on: (1) the concept of message transmission from the addresser to addressee; (2) the notion of isolated processing systems; (3) the idea that culture speaks a unique language. From the standpoint of the semiosphere, the new object for studying such controversies could be found in the concept of text. When text is taken at the centre of the analysis of culture, nothing appears in an isolated fashion. Lotman’s thinking does not fear the new hypothesis in proposing the conceptual domain of semiosphere to the scientific study of culture.

カ^[○!R]ルチュラル・スタディーズにおける批判的コミュニケーション論の再構成 : スチュアート・ホールの視座転換を手がかりにして

カ^[○!R]ルチュラル・スタディーズにおける批判的コミュニケーション論の再構成 : スチュアート・ホールの視座転換を手がかりにして

The Arabs in the First Communication Revolution: The Development of the Arabic Script

Scholars unanimously agree that the development of the alphabet is a cornerstone of civilization and that Greece played a central role in the spread of this medium in the West. Both Latin and Arabic scripts were derived from the Phoenician, which represents a shared cultural heritage between the Middle East and the West. However, the question of the development of the second most used alphabet in the world, Arabic, is riddled with uncertainty for scholars. They disagree on the origin of this significant medium, which has been used by Arabs, Persians, and other nations for the past 15 centuries. This paper examines how critical communication theory may help solve this enduring mystery and finds compelling evidence to suggest that the Arabic script evolved from the Nabataean rather than the Syriac.