Befreiung von kapitalistischen Geschäftsmodellen Entkapitalisierung von Journalismus und Kommunikationswissenschaft aus Sicht einer Kritik der politischen Ökonomie der Medien

Knoche, Manfred

doi:10.5771/9783845252353_241

Cited by 26 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…This is also the area were the particularities of the 13 In the US, 'robot journalism', that is, mechanically generated production of text by programmes like 'narrative science' for sport, finances and real estate are already trialled (cf. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 4 April 2012http://www.faz.net/-hbj-6yw8g (accessed on 29 October 2019) 14 For more details on '"iberation potentials" see Knoche 2014. media industry that set it apart from other industries become apparent. Regulated in the interest of the dominant owners of capital, these transformations will remain only partial transformations so long as complementary forms of capital valorisation based on complementary forms of products can bring overall higher profits than a total transformation.…”

Section: The Media Industry's Transformationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The crisis-ridden capitalist mode of production as driving force for restructurations and transformations in and of the media industry : explanatory theoretical elements of a critique of the political economy of the media

Knoche¹

2020

Preprint

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Section: The Media Industry's Transformationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The crisis-ridden capitalist mode of production as driving force for restructurations and transformations in and of the media industry : explanatory theoretical elements of a critique of the political economy of the media

Knoche¹

2020

Preprint

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…He has been a close observer and critical analyst of the media in capitalism over five decades, which resulted in over 100 publications. His academic work started with an analysis of the content of daily newspapers in Germany (Knoche 1968), reflected developments such as the rise of new social movements and neoliberalism, the globalisation of capitalism, and the digitisation of the media, and has most recently included an analysis of the political economy of open access online publishing and its potentials for the decapitalisation of the media and the liberation of the media from capital accumu-lation models (see Knoche 2014). He has emphasised the importance of approaching media economics as a Marxist political economy of social communication in order understand, critique and confront 21 st century challenges (see Knoche 1999d).…”

Section: Translators' Notementioning

confidence: 99%

“…This becomes for example today evident in the realm of online publishing: Non-commercial, non-profit open access journals such as tripleC question the capitalist publishing industry's capital strategy to use copyrights and sell contents via subscriptions. It has the potential to, as Knoche (2014) calls it, decapitalise the academic publishing system. The enemy does however not sleep: In the meantime, many capitalist open access publishers have emerged and used the very capital strategies that Knoche describes in order to charge authors or their institutions article and book processing charges so that they can accumulate capital.…”

Section: Translators' Notementioning

confidence: 99%

The Media Industry’s Structural Transformation in Capitalism and the Role of the State: Media Economics in the Age of Digital Communications

Knoche

2015

tripleC

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper discusses how the capitalist media industry has been structurally transformed in the age of digital communications. It takes an approach that is grounded in the Marxian critique of the political economy of the media. It draws a distinction between media capital, media-oriented capital, media infrastructure capital and media-external capital as the forms of capital in the media industry. The article identifies four capital strategies that media capital tends to use in order to try to maximise profits: a) The substitution of “old” by “new” media technology, b) the introduction of new transmission channels for “old” media products, c) the definition of new property rights for media sectors and networks, d) the reduction of production and transaction costs. The drive to profit maximization is at the heart of the capitalist media industry’s structural transformation. This work also discusses the tendency to the universalization of the media system in the digital age and the economic contradictions arising from it. It identifies activity fields of the media industry’s structural transformation and shows how the concentration of the capitalist media markets is an essential, contradictory and inherent feature of the capitalist media system and its structural transformation. The paper identifies six causes of why capital seeks to employ capital strategies that result in the media industry’s structural transformation. They include market saturation, overaccumulation, the tendency of the profit rate to fall, capital-concentration, competition pressure, and advertising. The paper finally discusses the role of the state as an agent of capital in general and media capital in particular. It discusses the role of the state in privatisations, neoliberal deregulation, the formation of national competitive states, and various benefits that the state provides for media capital. This contribution shows that capital and capitalism are the main structural transformers of the media and communications system. For understanding these transformations, we need an approach that is grounded in Marx’s critique of the political economy.Translation from German: Christian Fuchs and Marisol Sandoval

show abstract

“…It is in this way that the staging of a nervous search for 'new business models' as the supposed main problem of ' structural media transformation' is misleading, a manipulation by enterprises and an error committed by those who believe and reiterate it. (cf Knoche 2014)…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Current complaints by publishers about reduced turnover are thus in no way and indication of reduced profit.17 So, the technologically based modifications of the capitalist mode of production, actively pursued by enterprises of the extended media industry, also facilitates the new profitable 'business models' (cf Knoche 2014)…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Crisis-Ridden Capitalist Mode of Production as Driving Force for Restructurations and Transformations in and of the Media Industry: Explanatory Theoretical Elements of a Critique of the Political Economy of the Media

Knoche

2019

tripleC

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The goal of this article is to explain long term restructurations and transformations of the media industry. In order to do so, the article uses theory elements of a critique of the political economy of the media. The paper is a contribution to the development of theoretical approaches that provide a theoretical analysis of the media in capitalism based on Karl Marx’s concepts. The capitalist mode of production is the primary driving force of media corporations‘ strategic action and of the media economy’s structural transformations. Factors that are of particular relevance in such structural transformations include profit orientation, capital accumulation, capitalist crises, state policies, behaviour of producers and consumers, private property, class relations, the antagonism between productive forces and relations of production, the antagonism of variable and constant capitalism, the antagonism of use-value and exchange-value, and competition. Competition, capital’s need to survive, and capitalism’s immanent crisis potentials force corporations try to create innovations such as new digital technologies. Informatisation, which includes the use of the computer as universal machine and the Internet, is the provisionally latest stage in the development of the productive forces that has affected media technologies and the media industry. The capital-driven structural digital transformation of the media industry has resulted in the convergence of production, distribution and consumption, the creation of a variety of non-tangible digital products, digital rationalisation and automation, and the universal real subsumption of labour under capital. These developments have also created the potential potentials for overcoming the capitalist character of the media economy and advancing decommodification based on the emergence of a universal digital media system.

show abstract

Befreiung von kapitalistischen Geschäftsmodellen Entkapitalisierung von Journalismus und Kommunikationswissenschaft aus Sicht einer Kritik der politischen Ökonomie der Medien

Cited by 26 publications

References 0 publications

The crisis-ridden capitalist mode of production as driving force for restructurations and transformations in and of the media industry : explanatory theoretical elements of a critique of the political economy of the media

The crisis-ridden capitalist mode of production as driving force for restructurations and transformations in and of the media industry : explanatory theoretical elements of a critique of the political economy of the media

The Media Industry’s Structural Transformation in Capitalism and the Role of the State: Media Economics in the Age of Digital Communications

The Crisis-Ridden Capitalist Mode of Production as Driving Force for Restructurations and Transformations in and of the Media Industry: Explanatory Theoretical Elements of a Critique of the Political Economy of the Media

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About