Karl Marx and the Media
Abstract
The aim of this paper is to show the importance of Marxian thinking for communication and
media theory. First, a typology of critical media theories is constructed. Example approaches
that are based on the commodity hypothesis, the ideology hypothesis, the alternative media
hypothesis, and the alternative reception hypothesis are discussed. It is argued that the
shortcomings of these theories can be overcome by integrative critical media theories.
Dialectical thinking allows interconnecting the singular hypotheses of critical media theories
by conceiving the mass media under capitalism as antagonistic forces. It is argued that these
antagonisms can only be channelled in progressive ways by seeing the media as being
embedded into the larger societal totality. Politics of class struggle would be needed in order
to transform societal conditions in such a way that critical media could be effective.
The works of Karl Marx are systematically reconstructed in order to identify aspects of the
media and communication. This reconstruction is based on the Marxian circuit of capital. It is
shown that Marx provided important insights for analyzing the role of the media in
commodity and ideology production, circulation, and consumption and for discussing the role
of alternative media production, circulation, and reception. Therefore it is concluded that
Marx provided important groundwork for media and communication theory that could be
connected to the hypotheses of contemporary critical media and communication theories.
Keywords: philosophy of communication, Karl Marx, critical media theory, Marxian
communication theory, Marxian media theory
1. Introduction
The task of this work is to make a contribution to the discussion of the relevance of the
Marxian critique of political economy of capitalism for communication science. The basic
hypothesis is that critical media research has thus far largely neglected Marx, although he has
provided important insights for analysis and critique of contemporary capitalism that is
strongly media-, communication-, and culture industry-oriented.
Robert McChesney (2007) stresses in his book The Communication Revolution that critical
communication research can be subdivided into the Critique of Political Economy approach
and Cultural Studies. In the paper at hand this distinction is refined and a typology of critical
media theories is constructed with the help of the Marxian distinction between production,
circulation, and consumption. McChesney furthermore argues that Marx is very important for
communication science, but wouldn’t be accepted by most scholars who comprehend
themselves as being critical or would be considered as outdated or irrelevant by them. Marx
would be of fundamental importance for communication science because he would provide
intellectual tools that allow: 1. The critique of capital accumulation in the culture industry. 2.
The critique of commodity fetishism. 3. The critique of ideologies that legitimate domination
(McChesney 2007: 53-55). Furthermore 4. Marx’s own journalistic practice would be a model
for critical, independent quality journalism (McChesney 2007: 55-57). The lack of discussion
of Marx’s works in communication science can also be observed by the fact that there is no
systematic account of Marx’s contributions to this field. Therefore another task of the work at
hand is to systematically reconstruct how some aspects of Marx’s works are important for the
analysis of media and communication.
Gerald Sussmann (1999: 86) stresses in a special issue of the Journal of Media Economics on
the topic of “Political Economy of Communication” that critical communication science
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would be based on Marxian thinking: ”Marx, one of the first to recognize modern
communications and transportation as pillars of the corporate industrial infrastructure“. This
insight has thus far been hardly noticed in media and communication science. The work at
hand wants to contribute to a demystification of Marx, who is generally misleadingly
considered as a mastermind of the Soviet state dictatorship, and to show that he is a thinker
who is highly relevant for the critique of the contemporary dictatorship of capital in society
and the media and for the struggle for democratization of society and the media.
In section 2, a typology of critical media theories is introduced, in section 3 a systematic
reconstruction of Marx’s account of media and communication is given.
The methods employed by the paper at the hand are philosophy of communication and theory
construction. First, a typology is worked out that is based on the notions of production,
circulation, and consumption of media that are mapped with the political notions of
emancipation and repression. Then, a systematic typology of Marxian thought on
communication and media is worked out. This section of the paper is deliberately strongly
quotation-based, citation is used as a method for filling the gap that thus far there have been
no publications that allow scholars to systematically reconstruct what Marx was exactly
saying about media and communication. Yves de la Haye (1979) has edited a volume on
Marx’s and Engels’ writings on the means of communication that is a good text resource, but
doesn’t provide a systematic secondary analysis and typology. The typology provided in
section 3 of the paper at hand integrates the most important quotations into a systematic
typology, the quotation-based style is necessary for systematically documenting rather
unknown thoughts of Marx and Engels on media and communication.
2. A Systematic Typology of Critical Media Theories
For constructing a typology of critical media theories, the Marxian distinction between three
dialectically mediated spheres of the economy can be utilized: production, circulation, and
consumption. “In the process of production members of society appropriate (produce,
fashion) natural products in accordance with human requirements.“ (MEW 13: 620).
In capitalism, the role of goods is determined by their exchange value that dominates over
their use value and constitutes their commodity form. Marx describes circulation as “an
intermediate phase between production [...] and consumption“ (MEW 13: 630). In the
circulation sphere, money is exchanged with commodities, entrepreneurs realize profit by
selling commodities, consumers exchange money for goods. The commodity then leaves
circulation and enters the sphere of consumption, “where it serves either as means of
subsistence or means of production “ (MEW 23: 129). The starting point of analysis for Marx
is production, which is “the decisive factor“ (MEW 13: 625): ”The process always starts
afresh with production“ (MEW 13: 625, 630f). The three moments are interconnected.
Consumption creates new needs, which are produced in commodity form (MEW 13: 623),
consumption creates production. Production “supplies the material, the object of
consumption. (...), therefore, production creates, produces consumption“ (MEW 13: 623).
Production is a consumption of means of production, consumption is a (re)production of the
human body and mind. Production is based on circulation of means of production and labour
forces that are consumed by capital, production is circulation. Circulation produces a
distribution of money and commodity capital in a certain distribution between classes. In the
realm of the media we find: 1. The organization of the journalistic production of content that
are produced and stored with the help of media tools, 2. in order to be distributed with the
help of transmission technologies, so that 3. recipients consume cultural content. Production
is a consumption of journalistic labour power and fixed media capital, distribution is a
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production of the class-stratified allocation of wealth and information, consumption is
reproduction of labour power and the production of meaning and needs.
Those who follow the emancipation hypothesis assume that the media function primarily as
means of criticizing domination and as tools of class struggle. Those who advance the
repression hypothesis argue that the media are primarily means for enforcing and deepening
domination and class rule.
Production Sphere
Circulation Sphere
Repression
Commodity Hypothesis:
Hypothesis
Media as commodities for accumulating capital
Consumption
Repression
Manipulation- and Ideology Hypothesis:
Hypothesis
Media as means of manipulation for the ideological
enforcement of class interests
Emancipation
Hypothesis
Alternative Media Hypothesis:
Reception Hypothesis:
Media as spheres of grassroots production and circulation
Media reception as
of alternative content
contradictory process
involving oppositional
practices
Integrative critical media theories
Table 1: Typology of critical media theories
2.1. The Commodity Hypothesis
Representatives of the commodity hypothesis argue that the media are not primarily means of
manipulation and for advancing ideologies, but spheres of capital accumulation. Dallas
Smythe in this context has coined the notion of the audience commodity (Smythe 1981/2006)
and argues that the central question of a materialistic media theory is: “What economic
function for capital do they serve?“ (Smythe 1978/1997: 438). For Nicholas Garnham media
are “economic entities with both a direct economic role as creators of surplus value through
commodity production and exchange and an indirect role, through advertising, in the creation
of surplus value within other sectors of commodity production“ (Garnham 1990: 30). Another
example is Wolfgang Fritz Haug’s (1971, 1975) critique of commodity aesthetics, in which he
argues that the aesthetic dimension of commodities, their appearance, is used for realizing
profit by marketing them as aesthetic innovations.
2.2. The Manipulation and Ideology Hypothesis
Classical representatives are Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno who argue that the
exchange value character of cultural commodities results in a standardization of reception and
the resulting ideas and that the consciousness of humans is instrumentalized for dominant
interests so that potential resistance would be forestalled. Other representatives such as Leo
Löwenthal (1964), Günther Anders (1956, 1980), Herbert Schiller (1992, 1997), or Heinz
Steinert (2003) have also advanced the manipulation and ideology hypothesis.
In the contemporary literature one finds in the realm of ideology critique e.g. the anthology
Marxism and Communication Studies. The authors argue for a class analysis of
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communication: “Marxism understands that historically the battle has been between
competing social classes over the power to communicate, over the power to organize society“
(Artz 2006: 21). The dominant class would utilize the media for securing hegemony (Artz
2006: 33). “Marxism (...) sees public relations, advertising, organizational and political
communication, journalism, and other communication practices as attending to the
reproduction of capitalist relations of production“ (Artz 2006: 35). The media would have a
potential for exerting counter-hegemony.
2.3. The Alternative Media Hypothesis
The discourse on alternative media was anticipated in the 1920s by Bert Brecht (1967) who
argued that broadcasting could be transformed into a democratic medium if each recipient
would be able to not only listen, but also to talk to others. Walter Benjamin (1934) for the
case of newspapers and film argued that the audience should be transformed into participants.
In the 1970s, Hans Magnus Enzensberger (1970) further advanced these ideas by arguing that
electronic media are potential means of emancipatory media usage. Oskar Negt and
Alexander Kluge (1972) argued that one should see media in the context of proletarian
counter public-spheres. Burkhard Hoffmann (1983) argued that in the German debate on
critical media theory, on the one hand one could find the approach by Negt and Kluge who
considered alternative media as the complete negation of the existing media and on the other
hand by the approach of Horst Holzer who argued in favour of democratizing and reforming
existing media.
In newer communication science literature, the notion of alternative media has been explicitly
established. For Chris Atton (2002) the central aspect of alternative media is a self-organized
grassroots structure that allows the open, participatory, collective production of content. For
John Downing (2001) radical content and visions of a transformed society are the most
important features. One can distinguish between process- and content-oriented approaches of
alternative media research that can be combined in a dialectical theory of critical media
(Author 2008a).
A subject-oriented approach is the one by Armand Mattelart (1979) who argues for a class
struggle analysis of the media that shows how the oppressed make use of media in
challenging capitalist hegemony.
2.4. The Reception Hypothesis
Representatives of the reception hypothesis argue that reception is a complex and antagonistic
process that provides potentials for oppositional interpretations and actions. John Fiske (1989)
has argued that the manipulation hypothesis sees humans as cultural dopes (cf. also Grossberg
1998). Many representatives of cultural studies focus on cultural practices of everyday life
and the interpretation of texts within this sphere (Bennett 1992: 23; Johnson 1999: 179;
Nelson/Treichler/Grossberg 1992: 11). Fiske’s (2000) approach has been criticized as being
culturalistic, apolitical, ignoring class analysis, and believing in the liberal notion of consumer
sovereignty (cf. Ferguson//Golding 1997). Others have argued that this critique can’t be
generalized for all representatives of cultural studies (Grossberg 1998). In later works, Fiske
(1996) has more stressed that media also support class domination, racism, and patriarchy.
Nonetheless, also in these works resistance is fetishized and it is assumed that oppositional
practices occur necessarily: “Discursive struggles are an inevitable part of life in societies
whose power and resources are inequitably distributed. (…) A media event, then, as a point of
maximum discursive visibility, is also a point of maximum turbulence” (Fiske 1996: 5, 8).
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The alternative, that resistance is possible, but is ideologically forestalled, is excluded by such
formulations.
2.5. Integrative Critical Media Theories
The pure repression hypothesis poses the threat that potentials for change are excluded and
that humans are tempted to hold a defeatist attitude. Robert McChesney, who argues in favour
of a media reform movement, stresses this argument (McChesney 2007, McChesney/Nicholis
2004). The pure commodity hypothesis ignores ideological aspects of the media, which are
stressed by representatives of the manipulation hypothesis. The pure manipulation hypothesis
leaves out aspects of capital accumulation with the help of the media.
The pure emancipation hypothesis is too optimistic and overlooks that alternative media and
alternative reception frequently remain ineffective, unimportant, marginalized, and without
influence (Author 2008a). Structural inequality in the access and use of media caused by the
class and ownership structure of capitalism are not enough taken into account. Theories of
alternative media hardly discuss possibilities of alternative usage or reception of existing mass
media. Reception theories hardly consider the possibility for creating collective alternative
media projects in the realms of production and distribution.
The shortcomings of existing approaches can be overcome by integrative multidimensional
critical media theories. One can identify some approaches that point into this direction.
In the German tradition of the critique of the political economy of the media, Wulff Hund and
Bärbel Kirchhoff-Hund (1980) stressed that capitalist mass communication has an economic
and an ideological function. Horst Holzer (1994: 202sq) distinguished four functions of the
media: the capital-economic function (production and selling of media products), the
commodity circulation function (diffusion of buyer confidence and marketing of specific
products), the legitimizing function (propaganda) and the regenerative function (reproduction
of labour power in leisure time). The first function corresponds to the commodity hypothesis,
the unity of the other three to the ideology hypothesis. Based on Holzer’s approach, Manfred
Knoche (2005b: 105-107) has distinguished between the capital valorization function, the
merchandizing-, advertising- and public relations-function, the hegemony and legitimization
function, and the function of regeneration and qualification. In another work, Knoche (1999b)
distinguishes between an economic, and ideological, and a reproductive function. In the
typology that is used in the work at hand, the reproductive function is considered as aspect of
the ideology hypothesis because the regeneration of mind and body in culture and leisure time
integrates consciousness and bodily functions into capitalist domination. Manfred Knoche’s
works are based on the one hand like the ones by Holzer and Hund on the unity of commodity
and ideology character of the media, on the other hand he goes beyond these approaches by
also discussing the contradictory role of alternative media, especially of free radios, in
capitalism, so that also a connection to the alternative media hypothesis is established
(Knoche 2003).
Another more integrative approach is the British version of the Critical Political Economy of
Communication by Graham Murdock and Peter Golding, who stress the economic and
ideological role of the media: “The obvious starting point for a political economy of mass
communications is the recognition that the mass media are first and foremost industrial and
commercial organizations which produce and distribute commodities. (...) In addition to
producing and distributing commodities, however, the mass media also disseminate ideas
about economic and political structures. It is this second and ideological dimension of mass
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media production which gives it its importance and centrality and which requires an approach
in terms not only of economics but also of politics“ (Murdock/Golding 1973/1997: 205-207,
cf. also Murdock/Golding 2005, Murdock 1978/1997, Mosco 2006).
In the USA, the integrative approach of the Political Economy of Communication has been
established by Robert McChesney, Edward Herman, and Noam Chomsky (cf. Chomsky 2006,
Herman/Chomsky 1988, Herman/McChesney 1997, McChesney 2000, 2004, 2007,
McChesney/Nicholis 2004). In their propaganda model, Herman and Chomsky (1998) stress
on the one hand commodity aspects and on the other hand ideological aspects of the media.
Although Herman, McChesney, and Chomsky are not too optimistic concerning alternative
potentials, they stress that in principle alternative media movements can exert counter-power
against capitalist media corporations. Herman und McChesney (1997) stress especially
organizations like Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), free radios, open channels and
associations of alternative media like the World Association of Community Radio
Broadcasters (AMARC) and the Global Alternative Media Association (GAMA). In this US
approach, one finds a unity of the commodity-, the ideology- and the alternative mediahypotheses.
In cultural studies, especially Stuart Hall and Richard Johnson (1999) have tried to integrate
aspects of production and reception. Johnson (1999) has established such an endeavour by his
model of the cultural circuit. But by explicitly discarding Marxian-oriented analyses of
macro-economic ownership structures that shape the media (Johnson 1999: 145), he only
considers aspects of production as being relevant in the context of concrete studies of
everyday life. Johnson’s works therefore remain limited primarily to the reception hypothesis.
By trying to combine culturalism and structuralism in cultural studies (Hall 1999), Stuart Hall
(2006) has established a unity of the reception- and the ideology-hypotheses in his model of
communication encoding and decoding process. But Hall’s lack of explanation of repressive
oppositional interpretations (Klaus/Thiele 2007) shows a rather relativistic character of the
model (Author 2008a). In newer publications, Hall together with colleagues works with a
cultural circuit model that is based on the moments of production, consumption,
representation, identity formation, and political regulation of the media (Du
Gay/Hall/Janes/Mackay/Negus 1997: 3). Similar to Hall, also Douglas Kellner (1997, 2005)
argues for a unity of the manipulation- and the reception hypotheses.
For Herbert Marcuse (1967) media are on the one hand means of advancing ideologies by
simplifying reality and representing reality in one-dimensional, positivistic, undialectical
ways so that antagonisms are factored out and false consciousness is created (Marcuse 1967,
for a detailed discussion of Marcuse’s theory cf. Author 2005a, b). On the other hand he also
stresses that alternative media and alternative institutions are needed for counter-information,
counter-intelligence, and counter-enlightenment (Marcuse 1972, 1975). Institutions for
establishing a resisting intelligentsia would be required. The latter should also work within the
established institutions against these institutions. Marcuse’s approach is a unity of the
manipulation-/ideology- and the alternative media hypotheses.
The discussion shows that there are approaches that try to integrate the commodity- and the
ideology-hypotheses, the commodity-, the ideology-, and the alternative media-hypotheses,
the ideology- and the reception hypotheses, and the ideology- and the alternative mediahypotheses. However, all of these approaches leave out certain aspects of the repressive or
emancipatory character of the media. An integrative critical theory of media and society can
make use of dialectical logic in order to establish a dialectical unity of repressive and
emancipatory aspects of the media and a dialectical unity of aspects of production,
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circulation, and reception. The underlying line of thought is that media reflect the
antagonisms of capitalism and therefore have themselves an antagonistic character (Author
2008b). In a given societal situation, they are not to the same extent emancipatory and
repressive, the distribution is based on the results of political struggles and tends to be
uneven. Generally the ideology and commodity form of the media are predominant because
dominant groups in capitalism have more resources, power, money, and means of
mobilization (Author 2008a). As a consequence the probability that media are used in
repressive ways is today larger than the possibility of emancipatory usage. The existing
distribution of capital and power advances commercialization and ideologization of the
media. Besides the question about the reality of the mass media there is also the one about
their potentials. This question can’t be expressed in terms of possibilities. Possibilities are
immanent potentials that can only be realized by activities and in class struggles. There are
immanent possibilities to use, organize, and design media in alternative ways, i.e.
participatory and critical, and to interpret their contents in critical ways. These potentials are
only partly or hardly realized today. In principle, there are possibilities to politically set
structural conditions so that alternative media, critical production and reception of content are
funded and supported. But such endeavours contradict capital interests because critical media
question the capitalist totality and alternative media politics are only realizable as politics of
class struggle that make demands for redistribution and partial expropriation of capital (in the
form of increasing capital taxation) in order to use the obtained resources for creating and
supporting alternative projects and spaces.
Herbert Marcuse (1967) argued that the antagonism between potentials and actuality is
tightening in late capitalism. This means that media in contemporary capitalism have large
potentials for the socialization of the mental means of production, especially based on digital,
globally networking computer technology. But these potentials exist only as such in
themselves and are only partly realized as long as they are subsumed under dominant interests
and structures (cf. Author 2008b).
The emergence of new media technologies and products is the result of capital interests and
political interests. A new media technology like the Internet is under the regime of capitalism
always a sphere of capital accumulation, circulation, and consumption and sphere of ideology
production, circulation, and consumption (Author 2008b). At the same time new media
technologies also pose potentials for the development of alternative forms of organizing
media and alternative media contents that are characterized by transformed conditions of
production, circulation, and consumption. One and the same media technology (like Internet,
TV, newspaper, radio, film, video, etc.) can be shaped by different interests and usage forms
that contradict each other. So for example the Internet in the Iraq war 2003 was on the one
hand a sphere in which established mass media conducted global war propaganda and
transformed war images into capital, on the other hand with the help of the Internet the
phenomenon of war blogging emerged that allowed anti-war activists to share their views and
to network. Of course two contradicting events are never of equal relevance, new media
structures always have a dominative character under capitalism, if and to which extent
alternative structures can emerge from them is uncertain and depends on the results of
political struggles. The commodity and ideology functions of the media are almost
automatically dominant and omnipresent, the alternative media and alternative reception
function is first of all only an unrealized potential. Only if it is possible to attain a certain
freedom of action for critique by political demands and struggles, the possibility that these
potentials can be realized can be increased. Frequently alternatives remain marginal,
precarious, and unrealized because there is a structural dominance of uncritical thinking and
dominative interests. In order to improve the conditions for realization, media politics should
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be politics of criticizing capitalism and of aiming at overcoming this very system. The
struggle against the dominance of capital interests is also a struggle for free spaces for
thinking and action that allow humans to engage in critical discourse and organize themselves
against the existing totality. The central political problem underlying media politics today is
that public structures are eroded because the state gives tax incentives to corporations and
redistributes income towards corporations and the rich by deregulating working conditions
and creating the juridical conditions for the existence of low-paid precarious jobs. As a
consequence, one finds also in the realm of the mass media an increased centralization of
wealth. Corporate profits increase relatively fast because wages decrease relatively. It is a
general tendency in Europe and the USA that decreasing the wage share increases profit rates.
Figure 1 shows that in the USA and Europe profits have continuously increased since the
1960s, whereas wages as share of the gross national product (wage share) have been relatively
declining. This implies that the high growth of profits has been achieved by an increase of the
rate of surplus value, an intensification of the exploitation of labour by relatively decreasing
wages.
Figure 1: Profit growth in the USA and the EU15 (in billion US$ and €), development of the
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wage share in the USA and the EU15 (wage sum as share of gross national product). Source:
Annual Macroeconomic Database (AMECO), European Commission
The centralization of ownership and wealth results in a situation, in which national and
international public opinion are dominated by a few actors and corporations that have huge
influence on public institutions like the media, education, politics, culture, and welfare. In
order to avoid centralization, the best way would be the expropriation of the expropriateurs.
But the current distribution of power doesn’t allow this endeavour in the short-term.
Therefore demanding partial capital expropriation by high capital taxation makes more sense.
If such politics were successful, the obtained material resources could be used for supporting
public affairs like education, health, social care, information, communication, etc. and to
decouple them from the exposition to capital interests. For the realm of the media this means
that by capital taxation non-commercial, non-profit, free access media projects could be
created and supported. If in addition one can as a tendency free a certain share of labour time
from the exposition to capital by introducing a universal unconditional basic income
guarantee that is financed by capital taxation and taxing the rich, material and temporal
resources could be obtained that could function as foundation for critical action in critical
media projects. Another precondition is the support of critical pedagogy and education that is
decoupled from capital interests and allows young people to question domination and
exploitation. These suggestions might seem unlikely for some given the predominance of
neoliberal policies. But struggles for change are not hopeless, they pose the only chance for
abolishing the existing totality. “If [...] [capitalism] is to change, and in a positive way, it is
important that people who are dissatisfied with the status quo should not be overcome and
rendered truly powerless by a sense of hopelessness and cynicism. As Noam Chomsky said,
’if you act like there is no possibility for change, you guarantee that there will be no change.’“
(Herman/McChesney 1997: 205).
The approach advanced in this paper is one that considers the media as antagonistic: They
pose at the same time potentials for emancipation and repression. Mass media in capitalism
automatically have a repressive character; they take on commodity- and ideological forms.
But they also carry potentials for alternative production, content, distribution, and reception
that are marginalized and only existent as immanent potentials that are not automatically
realized. There are structural inequalities that decrease the possibilities of realization for these
alternative potentials. Politics of class struggle that primarily aim at redistribution and
expropriation are the only way for increasing the possibilities and structural conditions for
realizing these potentials. Therefore the position advanced in the paper at hand is neither a
hypothesis of emancipation nor a hypothesis of repression, but rather a political perspective
that situates the media within the societal totality and sees them as being embedded within
political struggles. To take this position means to decentre the media, to avoid media
essentialism, and to see that there is a dialectic of the media and society.
In the next section, a systematic account of Marx’s writings on media and communication will
be given.
3. Karl Marx and the Media
With some exceptions, there is hardly any direct reference to Karl Marx in media and
communication research. Horst Holzer therefore speaks of Marxian analysis as the forgotten
theory of communication (Holzer 1994). This silence is only broken slowly, so e.g. by the
publication of the handbook Media Marx (Schröter/Schwering/Stäheli 2007), the anthology
Marxism and Communication Studies (Artz/Macek/Cloud 2006) or Mike Wayne’s (2003)
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monograph Marxism and Media Studies. These accounts are valuable for breaking the silence,
but they are missing a systematic reconstruction of the value of Marx’s thinking for media and
communication science. It is noticeable that approaches like the Radical Political Economy of
the Media approach (Meier 2003, Grisold/Meier 2007, Grisold 2004) or the Critical Political
Economy of Communication approach (Murdock/Golding 2005) hardly or not at all give
direct references to the works of Marx. That these approaches more argue for reforms of
capitalism than for the latter’s abolishment can be seen as symptomatic for this condition.
A systematic account of the role of the media and communication in the works of Marx and
Engels has thus far not been established. Therefore in this chapter a quotation-based theoryguided systematic account will be constructed that should show that the commodity
hypothesis, the ideology hypothesis, and the alternative media hypothesis that were outlined n
section 2 are grounded in Marx’s and Engels’ works.
3.1. The Marxian Circuit of Capital
For a systematic location of the media in capitalism, one can take as a starting point the
Marxian circuit of commodity metamorphosis and the accumulation of capital, as it is
described in volume 2 of Capital (MEW 24).
Figure 2: The accumulation/expanded reproduction of capital
In the circulation sphere, capital transforms its value form: First money M is transformed into
commodities (from the standpoint of the capitalist as buyer), the capitalist purchases the
commodities labour power L and means of production Mp. M-C is based on the two
purchases M-L and M-Mp. In capitalism, labour power is separated from the means of
production, “the mass of the people, the labourers, (..) as non-owners, come face to face with
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non-labourers as the owners of these means of production” (MEW 24: 38) in class relations.
In the sphere of production, the value of the necessary labour and means of production are
added to the product. Value takes on the form of productive capital P. The value form of
labour is variable capital v, the value form of the means of production constant capital c. The
latter consists of two parts: circulating constant capital ccir (the value of the utilized raw
materials, auxiliary materials, operating supply items and semi-finished products) and fixed
constant capital cfix (the value of the utilised machines, buildings and equipment) (MEW 24:
chapter 8). Ccir and v together form circulating capital: They transfuse their value totally to the
product and must be constantly renewed. Cfix remains fixed in the production process for
many turnovers of capital. The turnover time of capital is the sum of its circulation time and
its production time (MEW 24: 157). Circulation time is the time that capital takes to be
transformed from its commodity form into the money form and later from its money form to
its commodity form. Production time is the time that capital takes in the sphere of production.
Fixed constant capital decreases its value by each turnover of capital. Its value is decreased by
c, which is a flexible value. Fixed constant capital like machinery doesn’t create value and
its value is never entirely transfused to capital at once. It is depreciated by wear and tear, nonusage, and moral depreciation (i.e. the emergence of new machinery with increased
productivity). “A portion of the advanced capital-value becomes fixed in this form determined
by the function of the instruments of labour in the process. In the performance of this
function, and thus by the wear and tear of the instruments of labour, a part of their value
passes on to the product, while the other remains fixed in the instruments of labour and thus in
the process of production. The value fixed in this way decreases steadily, until the instrument
of labour is worn out, its value having been distributed during a shorter or longer period over
a mass of products originating from a series of constantly repeated labour-processes“ (MEW
24: 159).
In the sphere of production, capital stops its metamorphosis; capital circulation comes to a
halt. New value V’ of the commodity is produced, V’ contains the value of the necessary
constant and variable capital and surplus value s of the surplus product. Surplus value is
generated by unpaid labour. Capitalists don’t pay for the production of surplus, therefore the
production of surplus value can be considered as a process of exploitation. The value V’ of the
commodity after production is V’ = c + v + s. The commodity then leaves the sphere of
production and again enters the circulation sphere, in which capital conducts its next
metamorphosis: By being sold on the market it is transformed from the commodity form into
the money form. Surplus value is realized in the form of money value. The initial money
capital M now takes on the form M’ = M + m, it has been increased by an increment m.
Accumulation of capital means that the produced surplus value is (partly)
reinvested/capitalized. M’ as the end point of one process becomes the starting point of a new
accumulation process. One part of M’, M1, is reinvested. Accumulation means the aggregation
of capital by investment and exploitation in the capital circuit M-C..P..C’-M’, in which the
end product M’ becomes a new starting point M. The total process makes up the dynamic
character of capital. Capital is money that is permanently increasing due to the exploitation of
surplus value
Which role do the media have in the circuit of capital accumulation? A systematic account can
be given based on the following distinction:
 The role of the media in commodity production (3.2, corresponds to the commodity
hypothesis of the media).
 The role of the media in commodity circulation (3.3, corresponds to the commodity
hypothesis of the media).
11
 Media and ideology (3.4, corresponds the the ideology hypothesis of the media).
 Alternative media (3.5, corresponds to the reception hypothesis of the media and the
alternative media hypothesis).
In analyzing Marx’s writings, one must distinguish between specific accounts of media
industries and general accounts that can be applied to the media.
3.2. The Role of the Media in Commodity Production
Manfred Knoche distinguishes in the media industry between media capital and mediaoriented capital/media infrastructure capital. The first form would be used for the production
and reproduction of programmes and contents, the second would be necessary for the
production of media-oriented production-, compression-, storage-, transmission-, encoding-,
and reception technologies (Knoche 1999b: 189, Knoche 1999a: 153sq). At the times of Marx
these capital forms were not present to a large degree, so Marx e.g. gives the number of
employees in the realm of media infrastructure capital in the UK with 94 145 in 1861 (MEW
23: 469). But Marx remarks with foresight that this realm will expand due to the development
of the productive forces: “The increase of the means of production and subsistence,
accompanied by a relative diminution in the number of labourers, causes an increased demand
for labour in making canals, docks, tunnels, bridges, and so on, works that can only bear fruit
in the far future. Entirely new branches of production, creating new fields of labour, are also
formed, as the direct result either of machinery or of the general industrial changes brought
about by it. But the place occupied by these branches in the general production is, even in the
most developed countries, far from important. The number of labourers that find employment
in them is directly proportional to the demand, created by those industries, for the crudest
form of manual labour“ (MEW 23: 469). Marx forecast the emergence of media-based
capitalism. For the English printing industry Marx described the bad working conditions and
the role of child labour in mid-19th century (MEW 23: 509, 569f).
Media Technology as Technology of Rationalization
Marx stresses that the invention of media technologies is advantageous for capital because
after invention the underlying knowledge would be available for free: “We saw that the
productive forces resulting from co-operation and division of labour cost capital nothing.
They are natural forces of social labour. So also physical forces, like steam, water, etc., when
appropriated to productive processes, cost nothing. But just as a man requires lungs to breathe
with, so he requires something that is work of man’s hand, in order to consume physical
forces productively. A water-wheel is necessary to exploit the force of water, and a steamengine to exploit the elasticity of steam. Once discovered, the law of the deviation of the
magnetic needle in the field of an electric current, or the law of the magnetisation of iron,
around which an electric current circulates, cost never a penny. But the exploitation of these
laws for the purposesm of telegraphy, etc., necessitates a costly and extensive apparatus“
(MEW 23: 407f).
For Marx technologies are “means for producing surplus-value“ (MEW 23: 391). For
increasing productivity, new technology is developed. As a consequence, living labour is
substituted by technology. “The machine, which is the starting-point of the industrial
revolution, supersedes the workman, who handles a single tool, by a mechanism operating
with a number of similar tools, and set in motion by a single motive power, whatever the form
of that power may be? [10] Here we have the machine, but only as an elementary factor of
production by machinery“ (MEW 23: 396). This process also takes place in the realm of the
media. So e.g. in the US printing industry productivity measured as output per hour increased
12
in the years 1997-2006 by 21%, whereas the number of employees decreased from 1997-2008
from 815 000 to 615 000 (Bureau of Labor Statistics Data). The US Bureau of Labor
Statistics stresses the role of computerization: “Computerization has eliminated many
prepress and production jobs“1.
Engels reports in his Conditions of the Working-Class in England on child labour and poor
working conditions in the printing industry in Lancashire, Derbyshire and West Scotland,
where working conditions were degraded and unemployment increased as a consequence of
the substitution of the hand press by the rapid press. “In no branch of English industry has
mechanical ingenuity produced such brilliant results as here, but in no other has it so crushed
the workers“ (MEW 2: 413).
The Specific Process of Capital-Concentration and –Centralization in the Realm of the
Media
It is also a goal in the media industry that the share of variable and constant capital is
decreased in order to increase profit rates. This is partly achieved by rationalization and
automation of media products. Unequal market conditions, organization structures, class
struggles, different levels of innovation, rates of the division of labour, rates of surplus value,
etc, are causes of different fixed costs, wages, and productivity in media corporations.
Corporations with higher levels of productivity can produce and sell their commodities
cheaper than others, which can result in higher market shares. As a result competing
corporations can lose profit and enter economic crisis. The consequence might be a takeover
by another competing corporation (horizontal integration) or bankruptcy. The tendency of
capital concentration in any way is supported. So e.g. the virtualization of journalism (online
journalism) is a potential rationalization because knowledge production, publishing and
distribution can be combined in one or a few employee roles. Media content is an
“immaterial” good. Its production causes relatively high initial costs. But once created these
goods don’t have to be newly produced, but can be easily copied, which is very cheap. In
order to gain profits by multiple commodification, it is wise for a media corporation to try to
overtake corporations that operate in related cultural industries (vertical integration).
Manfred Knoche (1997, 2005c, 2007) argues that media concentration isn’t an exception from
the rule in capitalist development as claimed by apologetic-normative theories of competition,
but an essential element of capitalism. A critical-empirical concentration theory would argue
that concentration and its negative consequences could only be avoided by the abolishment of
competition (Knoche 1997: 134).
Marx stresses that the development of the productive forces is one of the causes of capital
concentration: “The battle of competition is fought by cheapening of commodities. The
cheapness of commodities demands, caeteris paribus, on the productiveness of labour, and
this again on the scale of production. Therefore, the larger capitals beat the smaller“ (MEW
23: 654). Competition and credit would be “the two most powerful levers of centralisation“
(MEW 23: 655). Concentration for Marx means that certain corporations control more market
shares and profits in relation to others, whereas centralization means that not only the
distribution of capital becomes more concentrated in the hand of fewer economic actors, but
also the size of the centralizing corporation increases in processes of overtaking and
expansion (MEW 23: 655sq). Marx stresses that centralization is the immanent result of
1
http://www.bls.gov/oco/cg/cgs050.htm (13.4.2008)
13
competition: “Here competition rages in direct proportion to the number, and in inverse
proportion to the magnitudes, of the antagonistic capitals. It always ends in the ruin of many
small capitalists, whose capitals partly pass into the hands of their conquerors, partly vanish“
(MEW 23: 655). Marx didn’t apply the notions of concentration and centralization directly to
the media and culture industry, but spoke of a general development tendency of capitalism.
Given the high concentration rates that one finds in the realm of the mass media
(Hesmondhalgh 2007), one sees how important Marx’s notions of capital concentration and
centralization are today.
The Specific Function of Media Capital in the Production of Media Contents
Wage labourers in media and cultural corporations like journalists, editors, secretaries, call
centre agents, information brokers, software engineers, designers, etc. didn’t exist to a large
extent at the time of Marx. These activities have in common that they are primarily mental
activities that produce “immaterial” products or services – knowledge. The form of capital
that Manfred Knoche terms media capital is knowledge in commodity form that is produced
by knowledge workers. Marx forecasted the increase of the importance of knowledge work –
and therefore also of media capital – as a consequence of the development of the productive
forces. There is an economic interest in the substitution of living labour by technology in
order to decrease the investment and reproduction costs of capital and its turnover time, which
in the ideal case increases profit. The continuous overthrow and revolution of technology by
science is condition of existence and reproduction of capital. Therefore the importance of
technological means of production (fixed constant capital cfix) – and with it also the one of
knowledge labour – increases and the importance of living labour (variable capital v)
decreases continuously. Marx says that the organic composition of capital (the relation c : v)
increases continuously. “The accumulation of capital, though originally appearing as its
quantitative extension only, is effected, as we have seen, under a progressive qualitative
change in its composition, under a constant increase of its constant, at the expense of its
variable constituent“ (MEW 23: 657).
The increase of constant capital (the value of the means of production) results in an increase
of “the proportionate quantity of the total labour which is engaged in its reproduction “, the
mass of labour that is oriented on “the reproduction of means of production“, which encloses
the reproduction of “machinery (including means of communication and transport and
buildings)“ (MEW 26.1: 190). Production increasingly becomes dependent on knowledge,
“General Intellect“ (MEW 42: 602), the “universal labour of the human spirit “ (MEW 25:
114), “general social knowledge” that becomes “a direct force of production“ so that “the
conditions of the process of social life itself [...] come under the control of the general
intellect and [...] [are] transformed in accordance with it“ (MEW 42: 602). The importance of
knowledge in capitalism is based on the latter’s immanent tendency for the growth of the
organic composition of capital that at a certain point result in the overturn of quantity into
quality, i.e. a new qualitative phase of capitalist development, in which media capital and
culture industry are of central importance for capital accumulation.
The notion of the General Intellect that has been coined by Marx in this context in the
Grundrisse has during the past years become important in the Italian operaistic discourse on
“immaterial” labour (cf. Hardt/Negri 2000, 2005; Negri/Lazzarato/Virno 1998). Marx points
out that with the growth of technological productivity, knowledge becomes an important
productive force: “The development of fixed capital indicates to what degree general social
knowledge has become a direct force of production, and to what degree, hence, the conditions
of the process of social life itself have come under the control of the general intellect and been
14
transformed in accordance with it. To what degree the powers of social production have been
produced, not only in the form of knowledge, but also as immediate organs of social practice,
of the real life process“ (MEW 42: 602).
The General Function of the Media in Intra-Organizational Corporate Communication
Within capitalist organizations, communication media are used for reducing constant and
variable capital by accelerating the transmission of messages. Marx speaks in this context of
the “useful effect” of means of transportation, “during their stay in the sphere of production“
(MEW 24: 160). In large corporations, production is spatially distributed; it is necessary to
organize and co-ordinate production across distances. The transport of commodities and coordinating communication becomes necessary. Media are important in this context for the coordination of the transport of commodities “from one productive establishment to another“
(MEW 24: 151).
The General Function of the Media in the Globalization of Capitalism
Marx stresses the importance of the acceleration and enlargement of the production and
circulation processes of capital. Capital with a high rate of turnover can be faster and to a
larger extent accumulated. A wider expansion of capital allows potentially more spheres of
accumulation and consumption and as a consequence more profit. The “feverish haste of
production, its enormous extent, its constant flinging of capital and labour from one sphere of
production into another, and its newly-created connexions with the markets of the whole
world“ would have resulted in the emergence of a system of communication and
transportation consisting of “river steamers, railways, ocean steamers, and telegraphs n“
(MEW 23: 405).
Means of communication and transportation enable capital to expand in space and to create
global zones of capital investment, accumulation, exploitation, and political influence. “The
bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely
facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into
civilisation. [...] It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of
production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilisation into their midst, i.e., to
become bourgeois themselves“ (MEW 4: 466). The bourgeoisie would have created by the
development of the productive forces “more massive and more colossal productive forces“.
The electronic telegraph would be part of these forces (MEW 4: 467).
3.3. The Role of the Media in Commodity Circulation
The Specific Function of Media Infrastructure Capital in the Accumulation by
Transmitting Media Contents
Contents have to be transported with the help of transmission technologies in order for the
accumulation of capital to take place in the media sector. Manfred Knoche (1999a, b) speaks
in this context of media infrastructure capital. The corresponding provision and transmission
technologies are institutionalized in most cases. Transmission technologies are today due to
liberalization and privatization tendencies in the media and telecommunication sector mostly
profit-oriented corporations (e.g. commercial TV stations, radio stations, cinemas, online
shops, telecommunication corporations, theatres, opera houses, concert houses, etc.).
15
Marx described the existence of a form of capital in the realm of the media that doesn’t
produce, but transports and transmits commodities. The commodity in this case isn’t a
physical product, but the provision of transmission services, for which the recipients have to
pay in most cases. “But there are certain independent branches of industry in which the
product of the productive process is not a new material product, is not a commodity. Among
these only the communications industry, whether engaged in transportation proper, of goods
and passengers, or in the mere transmission of communications, letters, telegrams, etc., is
economically important“ (MEW 24: 60). The advancing vertical integration in the media
sector (cf. Herman/McChesney 1997) has resulted in a strong convergence of content and
infrastructure, corporations that provide media contents and media infrastructure. Media
content capital and media distribution capital tend to converge.
Marx argues that the production process that the transport industry brings about and that it
sells as commodity is the translocation of commodities (MEW 24: 60). In the case of media
industries this translocation is the transmission and diffusion of the commodity information.
In capital accumulation in the media distribution industry there is no separate physical
commodity C’: “The formula for the transport industry would therefore be M – C Mp ... P –
M', since it is the process of production itself that is paid for and consumed, not a product
separate and distinct from it” (MEW 24: 61).
The Media as Carriers of Advertising Messages that Advance Commodity Sales
Advertisement in the media is “necessary elixir” of capital because with it media corporations
gain and accumulate capital, it is necessary for the selling media products, it is necessary for
the sales of services and consumer goods and it is necessary for the ideological reproduction
of capitalist relations (Knoche 2005d). Advertisement is part of the circulation of capital; it
makes propaganda for the purchase and consumption of commodities in order to guarantee
commodity sales and the realization of profit. Engels speaks in this context of “fanfaronading
advertising“ (MEW 25: 28).
The General Function of the Media in Reducing the Circulation and Turnover Time of
Capital
The role of the media in the circulation process is on the one hand the sale of transmission
capacities. On the other hand they play a role on a more general level, at which they are used
for accelerating the circulation of commodities and reducing the turnover time of capital: “In
the second place the rapidity with which the product of one process may be transferred as
means of production to another process depends on the development of the transport and
communication facilities. The cheapness of transportation is of great importance in this
question“ (MEW 24: 144). “The chief means of reducing the time of circulation is improved
communications. The last fifty years have brought about a revolution in this field, comparable
only with the industrial revolution of the latter half of the 18th century. On land the
macadamised road has been displaced by the railway, on sea the slow and irregular sailing
vessel has been pushed into the background by the rapid and dependable steamboat line, and
the entire globe is being girdled by telegraph wires“ (MEW 25: 81). It would be an expression
of the importance of the means of communication and transportation in capital circulation that
the entire globe becomes technologically networked (which is just another expression for
girdling of the entire globe) (MEW 25: 81).
Not each commodity circulation would result in a translocation of commodities, not each
circulation is in need of means of transportation and communication. “A house sold by A to B
16
does not wander from one place to another, although it circulates as a commodity“ (MEW 24:
150). In those cases, where these technologies, would be necessary, surplus value would be
created: “But the use-value of things is materialised only in their consumption, and their
consumption may necessitate a change of location of these things, hence may require an
additional process of production, in the transport industry. The productive capital invested in
this industry imparts value to the transported products, partly by transferring value from the
means of transportation, partly by adding value through the labour performed in transport.
This last-named increment of value consists, as it does in all capitalist production, of a
replacement of wages and of surplus-value“ (MEW 24: 151). The communication and
transport time that is necessary for circulating commodities (e.g. in the form of advertising
time that is part of communication time) causes costs in the form of variable and constant
capital that is reflected in product value and price. In order to decrease these costs and
increase profits, entrepreneurs try to reduce circulation time by making use of efficient
communication technologies: “The capitalist mode of production reduces the costs of
transportation of the individual commodity by the development of the means of transportation
and communication, as well as by concentration – increasing scale – of transportation. It
increases that part of the living and materialised social labour which is expended in the
transport of commodities, firstly by converting the great majority of all products into
commodities, secondly, by substituting distant for local markets“ (MEW 24: 153). ”The
improvement of the means of communication and transportation cuts down absolutely the
wandering period of the commodities” (MEW 24: 252).
Media and the Globalization of World Trade
Marx argues that new transportation and communication technologies make it possible to
reach or build up distant markets, which would result in a globalization of world trade, a
global expansion of circulation sphere of capital: “Whereas on the one hand the improvement
of the means of transportation and communication brought about by the progress of capitalist
production reduces the time of circulation of particular quantities of commodities, the same
progress and the opportunities created by the development of transport and communication
facilities make it imperative, conversely, to work for ever more remote markets, in a word –
for the world-market. The mass of commodities in transit for distant places grows
enormously, and with it therefore grows, both absolutely and relatively, that part of social
capital which remains continually for long periods in the stage of commodity-capital, within
the time of circulation. There is a simultaneous growth of that portion of social wealth which,
instead of serving as direct means of production, is invested in means of transportation and
communication and in the fixed and circulating capital required for their operation” (MEW
24: 254). ” The colossal expansion of the means of transportation and communication – ocean
liners, railways, electrical telegraphy, the Suez Canal – has made a real world – market a fact”
(MEW 25: 506). The other way round, the expansion of global trade also advances the further
development of communication technologies: “Modern industry has established the world
market, for which the discovery of America paved the way. This market has given an
immense development to commerce, to navigation, to communication by land“ (MEW 4:
463).
Another important aspect of the relationship between media and globalization that Marx
described is the “shortening of time and space by means of communication and transport“
(MEW 16: 127).
The Spatial Centralization of Capital by Means of Transportation and Communication
17
Marx says that those locations that are hubs of capitalist production and circulation develop
into profitable centres, in which capital is concentrated. Other places would be excluded: “A
place of production which once had a special advantage by being located on some highway or
canal may not find itself relegated to a single side-track, which runs trains only at a relatively
long intervals, while another place, which formerly was remote from the main arteries of
traffic, may now be situated at the junction of several railways. This second locality is on the
upgrade, the former on the downgrade. Changes in the means of transportation thus engender
local differences in the time of circulation of commodities, in the opportunity to buy, sell, etc.,
or an already existing local differentiation is distributed differently” (MEW 24: 253sq). The
importance of the spatial centralization of capital today is shown by the Global Cities
approach, which stresses that a few global metropolises function as centres of capital
accumulation and that in these centres the infrastructure of capital, which includes the media,
is agglomerated, which would result in an unequal geography. Global cities like New York,
London, Tokyo, Paris, Frankfurt, Zurich, Amsterdam, Los Angeles, Sydney, São Paulo,
Mexico City or Hong Kong act as command centres of capital accumulation. They are
headquarters of the organization of the world economy, market places, and central locations of
the leading industries and production zones for innovations (Sassen 1998: 180).
3.4. Media and Ideology
By discussing the role of ideologies in capitalism, Marx and Engels have anticipated the fact
that media function as technologies of consciousness and play ideological roles in the
legitimization of capitalist domination. Engels argues that ideas are “reflections – true or
distorted – of reality” (MEW 20: 573). If ideas can be distorted this means that objective
reality can be represented in false, non-identical forms in consciousness. By comparing
ideology to a camera obscura Marx points out that ideology misrepresents reality so that
fictive ideas are considered as primary and the world is turned on its head: “If in all ideology
men and their circumstances appear upside-down as in a camera obscura, this
phenomenon arises just as much from their historical life-process as the inversion of
objects on the retina does from their physical life-process“ (MEW 3: 26).
A controlled press is for Marx a “civilised monster, a perfumed abortion“ (MEW 1: 54). Marx
stresses the importance of ideologies that distort reality in the context of the discussion of the
German press: “The German daily press is certainly the flabbiest, sleepiest and most cowardly
institution under the sun! The greatest infamies can be perpetrated before its very eyes, even
directed against itself, and it will remain silent and conceal everything; if the facts had not
become known by accident, one would never have learnt through the press what splendid
March violets have been brought into being by divine grace in some places” (MEW 6: 351).
For Marx, ideology is the expression of dominant class interests and the attempt to control the
dominated: “The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class
which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force.
The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same
time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of
those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it“ (MEW 3: 46). ”Morality,
religion, metaphysics, all the rest of ideology“ are characterized by Marx as ”phantoms
formed in the human brain“ (MEW 3: 26f). Already in the well-known Introduction to A
Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, Marx saw religion as ideology
that results in ”an inverted consciousness of the world“ and functions as ”opium of the people
“ (MEW 1: 378).
18
The insight that ideology distorts reality was later preserved and expanded in the chapter on
the Fetishishm of Commodities in Capital, Volume 1 (MEW 23: 85-98). “A commodity is
therefore a mysterious thing, simply because in it the social character of men’s labour appears
to them as an objective character stamped upon the product of that labour; because the
relation of the producers to the sum total of their own labour is presented to them as a social
relation, existing not between themselves, but between the products of their labour“ (MEW
23: 86). Marx assumes that the commodity character of goods conceals that these goods exist
only because they are produced by human labour in class relations. The “phantasmagoric”
impression that commodity, capital, and money are natural forms of existence that don’t have
societal foundations would be created. Marx here again speaks of “mist-enveloped regions of
the religious world“ (MEW 23: 86), his initial critique of religion is extended to capitalism in
order to show that the commodity and capital forms are manipulative and distort reality. The
fetish character of commodities also applies to the capitalist mass media: The forms of
domination of capitalism are naturalized by the media and are portrayed as being
unchangeable, it is concealed that they have a historic character, can be transformed by social
struggles, and are the result of societal development and social relations.
3.5. Alternative Roles of the Media
Marx and Engels spoke of the possibility of alternative usage, interpretation, and production
of media and their contents. For Marx the press acts critically under ideal circumstances. Such
a press that we today would term an alternative press would be the “public watchdog, the
tireless denouncer of those in power” (MEW 6: 231). At the content level, alternative media
would have to argue in a progressive and radical way: “it is the duty of the press to come
forward on behalf of the oppressed in its immediate neighbourhood. (…) The first duty of the
press now is to undermine all the foundations of the existing political state of affairs“ (MEW
6: 234). In his characterization of the “true press”, Marx anticipated the idea that alternative
media should be non-commercial and non-profit in order not to become corrupted by
capitalist pressures: “The primary freedom of the press lies in not being a trade” (MEW 1:
71).
Engels stressed in his discussion of revolutionary posters that a radical interpretation of media
contents is possible and politically important: “And what is more conducive to keeping alive
revolutionary fervour among the workers than posters, which convert every street corner into
a huge newspaper in which workers who pass by find the events of the day noted and
commented on, the various views described and discussed, and where at the same time they
meet people of all classes and opinions with whom they can discuss the contents of the
posters; in short, where they have simultaneously a newspaper and a club, and all that without
costing them a penny “ (MEW 6: 440).
In the Manifesto, Marx and Engels speak of an alternative usage of the media that allows the
networking and union of humans in social struggles: “Now and then the workers are
victorious, but only for a time. The real fruit of their battles lies, not in the immediate result,
but in the ever expanding union of the workers. This union is helped on by the improved
means of communication that are created by modern industry, and that place the workers of
different localities in contact with one another. It was just this contact that was needed to
centralise the numerous local struggles, all of the same character, into one national struggle
between classes. But every class struggle is a political struggle. And that union, to attain
which the burghers of the Middle Ages, with their miserable highways, required centuries, the
modern proletarian, thanks to railways, achieve in a few years“ (MEW 4: 471).
19
Engels demanded that the media and other means of transportation should have public
character, i.e. should be available for all humans for free: “All means of transport: railway,
canals, steamships, roads, post, etc., shall be taken over by the state. They are to be converted
into state property and put at the disposal of the non-possessing class free of charge“ (MEW
21: 217).
Engels argued that alternative media could make important contributions to general
education: “Only as uniform a distribution as possible of the population over the whole
country, only an integral connection between industrial and agricultural production together
with the thereby necessary extension of the means of communication – presupposing the
abolition of the capitalist mode of production – would be able to save the rural population
from the isolation and stupor in which it has vegetated almost unchanged for thousands of
years” (MEW 18: 280).
4. Conclusion
Marx and Engels have provided intellectual categories that allow the analysis of the various
aspects of the media, such as their commodity character, their ideological character, their
effects on capitalist production, alternative ways of organizing and doing media, and ways of
interpreting media content in the context of social struggles. These insights could today be
connected to a wide range of critical media theories that were outlined in section 2. The
conclusion from the discussion in sections 2 and 3 is that Marx should be considered as the
founding father of critical media theories.
We can summarize the following areas of production, usage, and effects of media that can be
found in Marx’s works.
In commodity production:
 Specific: Media technology as rationalization technology in the media industry
 Specific: The process of capital concentration and centralization in the media sector
 Specific: The production of media capital, knowledge workers as wage labourers in media
corporations
 General: Communication technologies for the spatial and temporal co-ordination of
production in order to reduce constant and variable capital shares
 General: Communication technologies as means for the spatial expansion of capitalist
production
In commodity circulation:
 Specific: Transmission technologies as means of accumulating media infrastructure capital
 Specific: Media as carriers of advertisements
 General: Communication technologies as means for reducing the circulation and turnover
time of capital
 General: Media as means and outcomes of the globalization of world trade
 General: Media as means of the spatial centralization of capital
In the circulation and reception of ideas:
 Media as carriers and circulators of ideologies
In the production, circulation, and reception of alternative media:
 Alternative media that are alternatively produced, distributed, and interpreted and function
as means of class struggle
Circulation
Production
Circulation
M - C (Mp, L)
.. P ..
C’ - M’
Consumption
20
Media Technology as Means of
Rationalization: s/v
The process of capital
concentraton and centralization in
the realm of the media
Knowledge workers as wage labourers in media
corporations
Media as means of inter-organizational corporate
communication and co-ordination: v, c
Media for the spatial distribution and extension of capitalism
Media as carriers of
advertisements
Transmission media as forms
of capital
Media and trade globalization
Media and spatial
centralization of capital
Media als carriers and diffusion channels of
ideologies
Alternative media as negating forces in media production, circulation, and consumption
Table 3: A systematic account of the role of media in the Marxian circuit of capital
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