Reviews

Lee Artz, Steve Macek & Dana L Cloud (eds.) (2006) Marxism and Communications Studies: The Point is to Change It

Peter Lang, New York. 258 pages ISBN 10: 0-8204-8825-9. $29.95 / €25.00 / £17.50 paperback.

This edited volume is exactly the kind of book that I imagine would interest the readership of this journal: a book that, in the words of the opening page, aims to reassert 'how Marxism can advance the study and transformation of human communication and the social world in which it is embedded.' Across a preface penned by Peter McLaren, a scene-setting introduction and eleven substantive chapters, the authors of the volume discuss the continued relevance of categories and concepts such as materialism, ideology, hegemony, reification, commodification, social class, dialectics, imperialism and others - and do so in a way that clarifies and emphasises their roots in Marxist theory.

Although the book chapters are not collected under headings or into sections, the editors' introduction spells out they may be 'bundled in four topic areas ... (1) language and ideology; (2) democracy and the media; (3) international communication and globalization; and (4) social change, dialectics and historical materialism as a method' (p.3). In order, the substantive chapters are authored by some of the key names in Marxist and materialist communications analysis: Lee Artz ('Towards a Class Analysis of Communication'), Dana Cloud ('Materialist Dialectics and Communication Studies'), Deepa Kumar ('The relevance of Marx's Dialectical Method'), Vincent Mosco ('Revisiting the Political Economy of Communication'), Colin Sparks ('Contradictions in Capitalist Media Practices'), Fabiana Woodfin ('The Distortion of Egemonia'), David Park ('Pierre Bourdieu and Marxist Theory in Communication'), Lora Taub-Pervizpour ('Capitalism and Communication in the Sixteenth Century'), Susan Leggett ('Living History and the Sports Pages of the Daily Worker'), Henry & Susan Giroux ('Corporate Culture versus Public Education and Democracy') and Steve Macek ('Critical Communication Scholarship, Marxism and Political Activism'). Some of these chapters are republications of previous work - and I'm sure that the editors, as Marxists, wouldn't mind me telling you that an earlier version of Colin Sparks' chapter is still available here for free - but clearly this doesn't undermine the merit of collecting them into a single volume.

In his lengthy and (arguably necessarily) sprawling chapter, taking in materialism, communicative means and practices, the significance of class to communications analysis (including class relations, formation and consciousness) and the media as hegemonic institutions, Lee Artz provides a theoretically and argumentatively engaging opening for the volume. The chapter isn't without its faults, however, and at points it would have benefited from a closer edit. For instance, Artz cites the example of US radio, which deteriorated from a predominantly non-profit, educational medium in the 1920s and early 1930s to a system for commercial broadcasting following the introduction of FCC regulations in 1934. This is a great example to refer to, of course, but not twice and within three pages (first on p.17 and again p.20-21).

The next chapter, by fellow editor Dana Cloud, is in some ways more successful, being squarely focused on the fundamental issue of dialectical materialism and the explanations it offers for processes of social and historical change. Cloud argues that dialectical materialism should be approached as 'the theory, study and practice of social change' (p.54) and that it is uniquely effective in helping us to understand 'how people through communication and other bodily action, take advantage of the historical opportunities afforded by contradiction and contention' (p.55). Marx's dialectical method is also the subject of the third chapter, by Deepa Kumar. Here, Kumar 'defends Marxism from the taken-for-granted, yet largely unsubstantiated, charge of reductionism and economism [...] by focusing dialectical materialism as method of analysis' (p.73). While the initiated will find the discussion of Hegel, Feuerbach and Marx a little familiar (and their reproduction of the Hegelian dialectical transition thesis-antithesis-synthesis somewhat ironic), there is still more than enough in Kumar's lively and engaging chapter to interest both new and old scholars. Her recognition of contradiction, specifically that 'the media are contradictory institutions [...] both in terms of the content of media products and in the structure and organisation of the media industry' (p. 83), is especially welcome, since such contradictions lie at the heart of both media and social change. Unfortunately, this importance is only hinted at in this chapter (which should have been longer!), though it is developed in greater length and sophistication in her (2006) book.

The issue of contradiction is also taken up as a major theme in two later chapters. In the first, Colin Sparks argues that while, in the main, the claim that the mass media 'routinely seek to reproduce the capitalist order of which they are a part is incontestable', nevertheless, in the pages of the press, on an almost daily basis, 'We come across people who are unquestionably not interested in propping up capitalism' (p.112). Therefore, a Marxist analysis of the mass media 'has to do at least two things: It has on the one hand to demonstrate that the media are integral parts of the system of class rule and, on the other, it has to account for the apparent anomalies of conflicting voices that are most certainly present in the immediately observable output of newspapers and broadcasting' (p.113). The chapter is a concise and astute examination of this tension in contemporary media practices. Complementing Sparks' approach, Leggett's chapter offers a historic study of contradiction in the sports pages of The Daily Worker, the newspaper of the Communist Party USA between 1924 and 1958. Here, her aim is to start to address the absence of academic analysis of this important newspaper, and specifically to draw out the contradictory nature of texts that 'celebrate and articulate the dominant values sustaining capitalism' whilst simultaneously provide a space for athletes, journalists and citizens to speak out against the inequalities brought by capitalism. The result is an interesting chapter, but one that is much lighter on analysis than it should have been, and promises a little more than it delivers.

The chapter by Giroux and Giroux offers a noteworthy critique of neo-liberal ideology and the contribution that critical pedagogy may play in opposing the injustice that it brings in its wake. Park's chapter on Bourdieu is also an interesting contribution. And though I do not share his view that Bourdieu's work can be as easily incorporated into Marxist analysis as he suggests, he does a good job of summarising Bourdieu's view that a 'critical scholarship, or what he called a "committed scholarship", could play a major role in shaping political struggles' (p.166). Likewise, Taub-Pervizpour's discussion of communication during the sixteenth century transition from feudalism to capitalism, and Macek's reminder that communications scholars need to become actively involved in movements for radical social change in order to close the distance between academic theorising and political practice, are both worthy contributions to the collection and grist to the mill.

But the real star of these later chapters is Fabiana Woodfin's contribution on Gramsci's Egemonia. Here, Woodfin argues that 'the translation and subsequent adoption of hegemony theory by inquiries into culture and communication [...] constitute a history of distortion, cooptation and - in more extreme cases - betrayal of the Marxist project of radical social change that hegemony theory originally espoused' (p.133). She traces the roots of hegemony, as a concept, from 'Gramsci's explorations of historical linguistics' (p.135) (in a treatment which, incidentally, draws frequently on Ives' (2004a) book, but curiously not his equally useful (2004b) text), through its adoption by early cultural theorists such as Raymond Williams and on to Stuart Hall's later faulty re-translation. In the hands of Hall, Woodfin argues, we are given a reading of Gramsci that ultimately 'has served to further encourage a barrage of allegedly critical work that has ultimately served the interests of the anti-Marxist tendency he decries' (p.150). Her chapter provides a salutary 'illustration of the subjection of Marxist theories themselves to hegemonic forces that seek to blunt and sanitize what is most critical about them', and a rousing call to retrieve and reclaim the critical core of Marxist concepts (p.154).

This is a substantial and highly stimulating collection of Marxist and materialist analysis, which should provide more than enough to attract anyone interested in Marxism, communication studies, or the fight for global social and economic justice more generally. I, for one, will be recommending my students - and colleagues - buy a copy, and engage with the evidence and arguments in this important book.

John E. Richardson

References

Ives, P. (2004a) Gramsci's Politics of Language: Engaging the Bakhtin Circle and the Frankfurt School. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Ives, P. (2004b) Language and Hegemony in Gramsci. London: Pluto.

Kumar, D. (2006) Outside the Box: Corporate Media, Globalization and the UPS Strike. Urbana-Champaign: University of Illinois Press.