It beggars belief that in a
liberal democracy there is such a passive acceptance of the inevitability of Campbell Live’s fate—why is a
fundamental cornerstone of democracy being eroded away within a system that
purports to actively champion it? I aim to offer a dual explanation for the
general demise of rigorous news media under late capitalism by application of
Theodore Adorno’s culture industry thesis, as well as Freudian psychoanalysis
via Herbert Marcuse’s repressive desublimation thesis. These two theories when
applied in tandem shed light on why this has not only willingly occurred by
suggesting that it is in capital’s interest to orchestrate such a system, but
that we accept this system because it caters for our deepest irrational desire for
it.
There has been a plethora of media analysis of the situation Campbell Live is facing, and
to trawl through all of them to give a comprehensive picture is beyond the
theoretical application of this essay. However, I wish to draw attention to
Gordon Campbell’s editorial that highlights the inevitable demise of investigative
journalism on broadcast television as an inherent, and dangerous, reality in a
market orientated environment. Campbell’s paraphrasing of Oscar Wilde to
describe the market telling us the “price of everything and the value of
nothing” should be to be considered pertinent rather than a mere quip.[1]
Lord Darlington was answering the question: “What is a cynic?”[2]
The Oxford English Dictionary defines cynical as:
Believing that people are motivated purely by self-interest … concerned
only with one’s own interests and typically disregarding accepted standards in
order to achieve them.[3]
Pay particular attention to
these definitions in relation to the market—and both Campbell’s application of
Wilde to the market, and how this relates to Adorno’s thesis (as well as
Marcuse’s). Keep in mind that under capitalism producers and consumers are self-interested. The disjunction
between intrinsic and exchange value touches at one of the contradictions of
capitalism, both with regards to the aesthetic of culture highlighted by
Adorno, as well as, more troublingly, the fundamental principles of democracy.
While journalism can be said to have use value in terms of information content
for consumers, at a higher level its relationship to maintaining a functioning
democracy and distributing knowledge could be considered intrinsic.
The original aim of Adorno’s thesis was to show what
we would perceive of as artistic culture—film, music, literature, radio,
television—is being standardised in such a way as to increase its market value
and well as undermine its critical element, all to the benefit of capital.[4]
The underlying causal mechanisms that he exposed in doing so can be discerned,
explicably, in every facet of late capitalist societies, including journalism.
By using a more encompassing definition of culture within Adorno’s theory,
investigative journalism (in this case within the context of broadcast
television), has also become subject to the same marketability and
standardisation that has subsumed artistic culture.[5] The
archetypal measure of success in business is sales volume, and in turn,
repetition of the formula of success. The product is worthy only insofar as it
can be sold to the largest possible market. It is beyond belief that Television
New Zealand’s pseudo-journalistic venture Seven
Sharp consistently has substantively higher viewer ratings than Campbell Live, nevertheless, the show
has found a formula that guarantees higher advertising revenue than a more
qualitative editorial enterprise. The show’s less contentious and predictable
content appeals to a larger public and appeases advertisers. It is little
wonder then that MediaWorks, Campbell
Live’s producers, wishes to replicate this formula for its own commercial imperatives.
Profit will always trump any higher value offered by journalism. This fusion of
entertainment and information produces a muted critical thinking in its viewers
that will feedback into supporting the capitalist media enterprise.
Surely within a highly educated society consumers
would see this apparatus at face value and demand otherwise? It seems not. In
order to understand this we must engage with Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis and
Marcuse’s Marxist application of it. Freud suggests our deepest irrational
desires for instant pleasurable gratification (the pleasure principle) is
regulated by normative rules in our social sphere that we internalise (the
reality principle).[6]
Freud refers to the process of transformation of these desires into useful
activity as sublimation. In addition to claiming civilization is driven by the
process of sublimation, Freud argues that art as an end is a principle
manifestation of sublimation. Marcuse, however, has suggested that late
capitalism has reversed this notion. High culture, he claims, was originally a
subversive dimension of society as the result of sublimation. However, the
culture industry under late capitalism has flattened out any subversive element
that it once had.[7]
While journalism
does not explicitly fit the mould of art, and it can nevertheless be considered
within high culture, as there is something to be said for the subversive
element it can contain, namely, the critique of power. It is the changes in the
mode of production under late capitalism that is rendering some forms of
television journalism less antagonistic by blurring the distinction between its
critical discourse, and trivialised news snippets and puff-piece journalism
that satisfies instant gratification. This desublimation in turn generates the
market demand that cynically demands this easy-to-digest and less subversive
news content that capital, seeking to return a profit, is more than happy to
supply.
A common critique of the trivialisation of television media suggests that
the sphere of interactive discourse has shifted to the medium of the internet.
While somewhat true, the desublimation hypothesis still suggests a required
critical thought to actively engage with this sphere; a concerted effort is
required to seek out and critically analyse news media and editorialised
writing. However, a desublimated consumer will defer this critical thought via
various modes of instant gratification: referring to websites of television
news media such as TVNZ or 3 News; corporate dominated print media websites
such as the New Zealand Herald or Fairfax; social media feeds such as Facebook
or Twitter; or in an unfortunately increasing number of consumers, even the
need for trivalised journalism is trumped by less critical forms of
entertainment of which the internet offers an almost bottomless pit of. Any
engagement with news media is still taken at face value uncritically, whether
in agreement or not, instant gratification is satisfied and the matter is
seldom engaged further than satisfactorily necessary.
Both Adorno and
Marcuse had something important to say in the critique of late capitalism, and
no doubt features of their theory are seen not just in artistic culture, but
all culture. 'I don't want to think; I want to feel' is the epitome of the
consumer under late capitalism. What Adorno and Marcuse have shown us is that
the passive acceptance of this system, because of capital's manipulation of it,
is destroying the 'think' supplied by investigative journalism, and
exacerbating the 'feel' supplied by predictable and formulaic infotainment. The
market becomes the measure of everything and offers the (intrinsic) value of
nothing. We have become astonishingly self-interested and cynical as a
consequence.
[1] Gordon
Campbell, "Gordon Campbell on the Demise of Campbell Live," Scoop
Media, last modified April 10, 2015,
http://gordoncampbell.scoop.co.nz/2015/04/10/gordon-campbell-on-the-demise-of-campbell-live/.
[2] Oscar
Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan (Cambridge: ProQuest LLC, 1996), 95.
[3] Oxford
Dictionary of English, Third Edition, 2013, s.v. “cynical”.
[4] Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of
Enlightenment, trans. John Cumming (London: Verso, 2010), 120-167.
[5] Precise
definitions of culture are numerous and debatable, and vary between
sociological and anthropological disciplines. I intend to utilise Ian
Buchanan’s definition of culture as a “set of beliefs, practices, rituals, and
traditions shared by a group of people”, which within a democratic society
would include journalism as valued for its contribution to political
accountability. Oxford Dictionary of Critical Theory (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2010), s.v. “culture”.
[6] Sigmund
Freud, Civilization and its Discontents, trans. David McLintock (London:
Penguin, 2004), 16-20.
[7] Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the
Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society (London: Routledge, 2002),
59-86.
———————————————————————————————————————— "... we can explore space together, both inner and outer, forever in peace." —W. M. Hicks.
