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Vol.16 (2009), No. 2, pp. 5 - 24
A CONTRIBUTION
TO THEORETICAL
FOUNDATIONS OF
CRITICAL MEDIA AND
COMMUNICATION STUDIES
Abstract
The overall aim of this work is to contribute to the
discussion of theoretical aspects of critical media and com-
munication theory. A typology of critical media and com-
munication studies 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 integrative bridging approaches can be found and
that a disciplinary matrix can enhance the dialogue about
commonalities and di erences within critical
communication studies.
CHRISTIAN FUCHS
Christian Fuchs is Associate
Professor at the University
of Salzburg; e-mail:
christian.fuchs@sbg.ac.at.
6
Introduction
For conducting critical media and communication studies, one fi rst of all needs to
know what these studies are about and which categories they can make use of. This
work refl ects on the theoretical foundations of critical media and communication
studies. The research questions are: How can critical media and communication
studies be defi ned? Which diff erent types of critical media and communication
studies are there?
Robert T. Craig (1999) sees critical communication studies as one of seven tra-
ditions of communication theory that he distinguishes based on their notions of
communication. For Craig, the characteristic that distinguishes critical communica-
tion studies from rhetorical, semiotic, phenomenological, cybernetic, sociopsycho-
logical, and sociocultural traditions of communication theory is that for “critical
communication theory, the basic ‘problem of communication’ in society arises
from material and ideological forces that preclude and distort discursive refl ec-
tion. ... Fundamentally, in the tradition of Marx, its point is not to understand the
world … Its point is to change the world through praxis, or theoretically refl ective
social action” (Craig 1999, 147f). Craig works out the specifi cs of critical studies
and other traditions in communication studies. However, I would add to Craig’s
account of critical communication studies that it is not only about the analysis of
those conditions that distort communication, i.e. the ways how communication is
embedded into relations of domination, but also about fi nding alternative condi-
tions of society and communication that are non-dominative and about struggles
for establishing such alternatives. Craig argues that “communication theory has not
yet emerged as a coherent fi eld study” and that this fragmentation can be overcome
by constructing “a dialogical-dialectical disciplinary matrix” (Craig 1999, 120) that
enables the emergence of a conversational community, “a common awareness of
certain complementarities and tensions among diff erent types of communication
theory, so it is commonly understood that these diff erent types of theory cannot
legitimately develop in total isolation from each other but must engage each other
in argument” (Craig 1999, 124). The same can be said about critical communication
studies as a subfi eld of communication studies. A disciplinary matrix of critical
communication studies can enhance the dialogue between various subfi elds of
the subfi eld –such as critical theory, critical political economy, cultural studies,
feminist theory, postcolonial theory, queer theory, and new social movements – so
that common assumptions and diff erences about what it means to conduct critical
studies of communication can emerge. This paper is an a empt to contribute to
foundations of creating such a matrix.
The basic idea that this paper wants to advance is that a unity of plurality of
critical media and communication studies can best be achieved by remembering
the Marxian roots of this fi eld. A model that focuses on the Marxian division into
production, circulation, and consumption as three diff erentiated and connected
dialectical aspects of the economy allows connecting the various approaches.
The method employed in this work is philosophy of communication and theory
construction. First, a broad defi nition of critical media and communication studies
is elaborated. Second, a typology is suggested that is based on the notions of pro-
duction, circulation, and consumption of media that are mapped with the political
notions of emancipation and repression.
7
A Defi nition of Critical Media and Communication Studies
What many definitions of critical communication and media studies share is
a focus on the analysis of media, communication, and culture in the context of
domination, asymmetrical power relations, exploitation, oppression, and control
as object of study (see for example Gandy 1982, Hardt 1992, Kellner 1995, Knoche
2005, Winter 2004). Such analyses are undertaken with all intellectual means that are
necessary in order to contribute to the establishment of a participatory, co-operative
society. From a praxeo-onto-epistemological perspective on science (see Ho irch-
ner, Fuchs & Klauninger 2005, 78-81), we can then define critical communication
and media studies as studies that focus ontologically on the analysis of media,
communication, and culture in the context of domination, asymmetrical power
relations, exploitation, oppression, and control by employing at the epistemologi-
cal level all theoretical and/or empirical means that are necessary for doing so in
order to contribute at the praxeological level to the establishment of a participatory,
co-operative society. Given such a defi nition, critical communication and media
studies are inherently normative and political
.
Certainly all media, communications, and cultural scholars claim to be critical.
It seems to me that critique is one of the most infl ationary terms used in the hu-
manities and social sciences (Fuchs and Sandoval 2008). This issue was already at
the heart of the positivism debate in German sociology in 1961. For Karl R. Popper
(1962), the method of the social sciences was gaining and diff erentiating knowledge
by testing solutions to problems. This method would be critical because scholars
would question the works of others in order to improve knowledge in trial and
error processes. For Popper, critique was an epistemological method that shows
logical contradictions. Theodor W. Adorno (1962) argued that contradictions are
not only epistemological (in the relation of subject-object), but can be inherent in
objects themselves so that they cannot be resolved by acquiring new knowledge
(Adorno 1962, 551). Adorno stressed that Popper’s ideal of value-free science was
shaped by the bourgeois concept of value as exchange value (Adorno 1962, 560) and
that positivism is only oriented on Appearance, whereas Critical Theory focuses on
the diff erence between Essence and Appearance (Adorno 1969, 291). He pointed
out that Popper’s notion of critique was subjective and cognitive (1969, 304).
The underlying diff erence of this dispute is between epistemological critique
(Popper) and the critique of society (Adorno). I argue that it is the second under-
standing that should be used for defi ning critical media and communication stud-
ies and that therefore there is also a whole lot of uncritical thinking in media and
communication studies. Based on Horkheimer (1937/2002), a distinction between
traditional and critical media and communication studies can be drawn.
Critical media and communication studies as critique of domination in the
context of media, culture, and communication correspond perfectly to the un-
derstanding of critique given by Marx in the Introduction to the Critique of Hegel’s
Philosophy of Right in 1844: “The criticism of religion ends with the teaching that
man is the highest essence for man – hence, with the categoric imperative to overthrow
all relations in which man is a debased, enslaved, abandoned, despicable essence,
relations which cannot be be er described than by the cry of a Frenchman when
it was planned to introduce a tax on dogs: Poor dogs! They want to treat you as
human beings!” (MEW 1, 385). If we understand Marxian critique as the critique
8
of all forms of domination and all dominative relationships, then all critical studies
and therefore also all critical media and communication studies are at least Marx-
ian-inspired. My argument is that this heritage should not be denied, but taken
seriously and positively acknowledged.
Critical media and communication studies should be in line with the most
recent developments of social theory in order to show that they can be connected
to current debates. One of the major debates in the social sciences in the past years
has been the one on public social sciences. Critical studies have been discussed as
part of this debate. Therefore this discourse seems to be particularly suited as a
point of reference for critical media and communication studies.
Michael Burawoy (2005a; 2005b; 2007) argues that neoliberalism has resulted in
the privatisation of everything. Conducting public social science that tackles real
world problems would become ever more important because society would have
become more precarious and reactionary. In the 1970s, the social sciences would
have lagged behind the radical character of social movements and therefore the task
would have been to create a critical academic social science. Today, society would
be more reactionary, and society would lag behind academia. Therefore the pri-
mary task for the social sciences would be to transform society. In traditional public
social sciences, scholars would write in the opinion pages of national newspapers.
In organic public social sciences, scholars would work “in close connection with a
visible, thick, active, local, and o en counterpublic” (Burawoy 2007, 28). “Critical
sociology is a normative dialogue, primarily among sociologists and conventionally
directed to professional sociology, whereas public sociology is dialogue primar-
ily between sociologists and publics about the normative foundations of society”
(Burawoy 2005a, 380).
This distinction is based on two questions: Social science for what (instrumental
knowledge or refl exive knowledge)? Social science for whom (academic audience
or extra-academic audience)? Burawoy bases the fi rst distinction on Horkheimer
and Adorno (Burawoy 2007, 34). Instrumental knowledge would be oriented on
means to reach ends, whereas refl exive knowledge would be concerned with the
ends of society. This means that refl exive knowledge is inherently ethical, political,
and partisan.
“Public sociology has no intrinsic normative valences, other than the commit-
ment to dialogue around issues raised in and by sociology. It can as well support
Christian fundamentalism as it can liberation sociology or communitarianism”
(Burawoy 2007, 30).
For Max Horkheimer, the distinction was not between instrumental reason and
refl exive reason, but between instrumental reason and critical reason. Instrumental
reason is oriented on utility, profi tableness, and productivity. Critical reason is
partisan and operates with the Marxian categories of class, exploitation, surplus
value, profi t, misery, and breakdown. These categories constitute a whole that is not
oriented on “the preservation of contemporary society”, but on the “transforma-
tion into the right kind of society” (Horkheimer 1937/2002, 218). The goal of critical
theory would be the transformation of society as a whole (219) so that a “society
without injustice” (221) emerges that is shaped by “reasonableness, and striving
for peace, freedom, and happiness” (222), “in which man’s actions no longer fl ow
from a mechanism but from his own decision” (229), and that is “a state of aff airs
9
in which there will be no exploitation or oppression” (241). Horkheimer (1937/2002)
argued that critical theory wants to enhance the realization of all human potentialities
(248). It “never simply aims at an increase of knowledge as such. Its goal is man’s
emancipation from slavery” (249) and “the happiness of all individuals” (248).
Social sciences that support Christian fundamentalism are therefore for Hork-
heimer (1937/2002) a false form of partisanship and a form of public science that sup-
ports a dominative and instrumental society. Such studies are based on instrumental
reason and should therefore be er be considered as being part of instrumental policy
social science and not of refl exive public social science. What is needed is not just
public social sciences, but critical, Marxian-inspired, le wing, progressive public
social sciences in Horkheimer’s (1937/2002) sense. I therefore agree with Francis Fox
Piven (2007), who argues for a “dissident and critical public sociology.”
Based on these assumptions, I want to further develop Burawoy’s typology into
a Horkheimerian direction. The advantage of this twist is that it avoids relativism
and has a clear notion of what is critical. Based on Burawoy’s schema, once criti-
cal media and communication studies become a dominant paradigm, they are no
longer critical, but instrumental and those positivistic approaches that are domi-
nant today for Burawoy then become critical approaches because they challenge
the dominant paradigm. Critical media and communication studies could then no
longer be termed critical. The disadvantage of Burawoy’s approach is that it does
not have a clear notion of what is critical. The notion of critique that I employ is
not just a critique of dominant academic traditions, but critique of dominative
society and class structuration as such. The public social science envisioned here
is a strong form of Burawoy’s public social science, a strong objectivity that is
termed public critical social sciences and that is opposed by the now-dominant
public uncritical social sciences. In the purely academic world, critical social sci-
ences challenge the dominant uncritical, positivistic professional instrumental
social sciences. What Burawoy defi nes as sociological socialism should be stressed
more explicitly as the desirable form of the public social sciences, whereas instru-
mental public social sciences that advance dominative interests should be seen as
undesirable. “We might say that critical engagement with real utopias is today an
integral part of the project of sociological socialism. It is a vision of a socialism that
places society, or social humanity at its organizing center. … If public sociology is
to have a progressive impact it will have to hold itself continuously accountable
to some such vision of democratic socialism” (Burawoy 2005b, 325). Burawoy’s
Table 1: Michael Burawoy’s Typology of Social Science Approaches
Academic Audience Extra-Academic Audience
Instrumental
Knowledge
Professional Social Sciences: Research
conducted within research programs
that de ne assumptions, theories, con-
cepts, questions, and puzzles.
Policy Social Sciences: Public defence
of social research, human subjects;
funding, congressional brie ngs.
Re exive
Knowledge
Critical Social Sciences: Critical debates
of the discipline within and between
research programs.
Public Social sciences: Concern for the
public image of the social sciences;
presenting findings in an accessible
manner; teaching basics of social sci-
ence; and writing textbooks.
