6.6.10. The Rationalities of Communication and Raymond Williams’ Distinction Between Authoritarian, Paternal, Commercial and Democratic Communications
The distinction between instrumental and co-operative rationality is important for the world of communications. Raymond Williams (1976, 130–137) distinguishes between authoritarian, paternal, commercial and democratic organisational forms of the media. The first three can be understood as political, cultural and commercial expressions of instrumental reason in the organisation of media systems. Authoritarian communications mean that there is state control, manipulation and censorship of the media. Such systems’ ‘purpose of communication is to protect, maintain, or advance a social order based on minority power’ (131). Paternal communications are authoritarian systems ‘with a conscience: that is to say, with values and purposes beyond the maintenance of its own power’ (131). There is ideological control that aims to impose certain moral values on audiences because it is assumed that such morals are good for citizens and that the latter are too silly to understand the world. In commercial communications, there is commercial control: ‘Anything can be said, provided that you can aford to say it and that you can say it profitably’ (133). All three forms are instrumental: they instrumentalise the media as tools for control and domination.
In contrast democratic communications are based on co-operative rationality. Communications are ‘means of participation and of common discussion’ (134). Williams argues for a ‘cultural democracy’ that combines public-service media and local media. ‘The idea of public service must be detached from the idea of public monopoly, yet remain public service in the true sense’ (134) of public service content. Instrumental and co-operative media are contradictory forces. Williams observes the tendency that the commercial colonisation of communications dominates: ‘All the basic purposes of communication – the sharing of human experience – are being steadily subordinated to this drive to sell. […] The organization of communications is then not for use, but for profit’ (Williams 1976, 25). The ‘commercial has been steadily winning’ (Williams 1976, 137). This tendency holds true until today. Only cultural forms of class struggle can drive back the capitalist colonisation of communications.
6.6.11. Towards A Dialectical Critical Theory of Communication Beyond Habermas
A critical theory of communication is dialectical in a manifold sense. It theorises that the dialectics of work/communication, body/mind, individuality/ sociality, internalisation/externalisation, subject/object, practices/technology, communication/media, agency/structures, communication/communications, instrumental communication/co-operative communication that are fundamental determinants of communication.
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