{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"dadb939e-7360-4727-a1fb-be08c2f7a611","title":"Critical Theory of Communication New Readings of Lukács, Adorno, Marcuse, Honneth and Habermas in the Age of the Internet","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9781911534044","requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"dadb939e-7360-4727-a1fb-be08c2f7a611","id":"dadb939e-7360-4727-a1fb-be08c2f7a611","uuid":"dadb939e-7360-4727-a1fb-be08c2f7a611","title":"Critical Theory of Communication New Readings of Lukács, Adorno, Marcuse, Honneth and Habermas in the Age of the Internet","normalized_title":"criticaltheoryofcommunicationnewreadingsoflukácsadornomarcusehonnethandhabermasintheageoftheinternet","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9781911534044","isbns":["9781911534044","9781911534051","9781911534068","9781911534075"],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":236,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/dadb939e-7360-4727-a1fb-be08c2f7a611","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/Critical%20Theory%20of%20Communication%20New%20Readings%20of%20Luk%C3%A1cs%2C%20Adorno%2C%20Marcuse%2C%20Honneth%20and%20Habermas%20in%20the%20Age%20of%20the%20Internet","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/dadb939e-7360-4727-a1fb-be08c2f7a611/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/dadb939e-7360-4727-a1fb-be08c2f7a611/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/dadb939e-7360-4727-a1fb-be08c2f7a611","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/dadb939e-7360-4727-a1fb-be08c2f7a611/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/dadb939e-7360-4727-a1fb-be08c2f7a611/search"},"page":{"printed_page":30,"pdf_page":34,"physical_index":34,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"9d7349a54d3868ef585b5dfee8b45b7158ed80ec5896376041aa4a697d56caf6"},"chapter":"C H R I S T I A N F U C H S CRITICAL THEORY OF COMMUNICATION","content":"For Habermas, emancipatory interest ‘aims at the pursuit of reflection’ (Habermas 1971, 198), it enables ‘liberation from dogmatic dependence (Habermas 1971, 271). In those passages, where Habermas tries to define what critical theory is all about (Habermas 1987, 375; Habermas 1971, 198, 271), his formulations remain abstract and vague. He mainly points out the emancipatory role of communication and that the goal is undistorted communication. He thereby falls short of the concreteness of Lukács’, Horkheimer’s, Adorno’s and Marcuse’s notions of critical theory. These thinkers left no doubt that such a theory is all about questioning all structures of domination and exploitation. In a way, Habermas retains the classical Marxist distinction between base and superstructure, but inverts it by putting the stress on communication. Doubts arise if work can be so strictly separated from communication in a dualistic way. The twentieth and twenty-first century have seen a rising importance of communicative and cultural work in the economy. But if such activity takes on value-generating form, then culture and communication must be part of the economy themselves, base and superstructure become integrated, labour and communication cannot be separated.\n\nCommunication is one of the crucial foundations of the economy: the latter is not just a system of the production of use-values and in class-based societies of exchange values. It is also a social system because production in any society takes on complex forms beyond individual self-sustenance. The only way for organising the relational dimension of the economy is via communication, in the form of symbolic interaction and/or anonymous forms of indirect communication (as for example via money, markets, the price system, etc.). Human thought is a precondition for human communication and existence. When humans produce in the economy, they do so with a purpose in mind, which means that they anticipate the form of the object and how it will be put to use. The economic existence of man requires anticipative thinking just like it requires communication. It is in these two specific senses – the importance of communication and thought – that the economy is always and fundamentally cultural. Capitalism’s history has also been a history of the commodification of culture and communication, especially since the twentieth century. This is not to say that culture and communication necessarily take on the form of a commodity, but that in capitalism they frequently do so in the form of content commodities, audience commodities and cultural labour power as commodity. In this sense culture has been economised, or, to be more precise commoditised, i.e. put under the influence of the commodity logic.\n\nCommunication is certainly an important aspect of a domination-less society. Communication is, however, in capitalism also a form of interaction, in which ideology is with the help of the mass media made available to the dominated groups. Communication is not automatically progressive. For Habermas, the diferentiation is between instrumental/strategic reason and communicative reason, whereas for Horkheimer the distinction is between instrumental reason and critical reason (Horkheimer 1947) and based on it between traditional and critical theory (Horkheimer 2002).\n\n30\n\nCritical Theory of Communication","previous_page":29,"next_page":31}