Write an evaluation of the debate about the Mass Media between Hans-Magnus

Enzensberger and Jean Baudrillard.

Enzenberger’s believed that the media as a whole had tremendous potential for
spreading revolutionary ideas. But he believed that socialists were not
interacting with the new media as they could or should. For Enzensberger the
media could be unique a mobilizing power. But they are not taking advantage of
this. The left are, according to Enzensberger, guilty of being anachronistic. They
persist in using outdated methods and see only the dark side of the media. For
the left the media is propaganda for the ruling classes. More. Enzenberger
attempts to develop a socialist model of the media. He applies classical Marxist
categories to the media. Capitalists control the consciousness industry. They use
their resources to develop it at speed. The capitalist controlled media exerts
control over the masses gripping them in false consciousness. The producers of
classic Marxist theory are replaced by the transmitters, the consumers are
replaced by receivers. This is the state of the mass media as Enzensberger sees it.
But he makes a point of disagreeing with George Orwell. The media can’t be
controlled by one all-powerful entity. The media is now too big. Any attempt to
manipulate the media by one group that would distort the natural flow of
information and would lead to an “embolism”1 Instead of one “monolithic
consciousness”2 controlling the media there is an upper class that excludes the
working classes from control of the media making process. He challenges
Marxists to attack the contradictions of the media system just as they attack the
contradictions inherent in the economic system. The media as it stands is
alienating and isolating the masses just as the ruling interests want. It is the duty
of the socialist to expose this manipulation and channel the power of the media
in revolutionary directions. It is a distinction of Enzenberger’s thought that the
media is always being manipulated. He wants the people to do the manipulating
not the capitalists.

Enzensberger proposes an alternative use for the media. He believes that it can
be turned toward revolutionary ends. The media’s form, such as radio’s that can
only receive signals is dictated by it’s elitist controllers and not by the limitations
of technology. Enzensberger was optimistic that if the capitalist media order was
overthrown the masses would be able to communicate with each other. By
communicating they would share their grievances and from this knowledge of
each other would be able to form a better society. Enzensberger wants everyone
to a media manipulator. This would be democratic manipulation. For
Enzensberger it is impossible for the media to transmit the undiluted truth. He
calls the idea that the media could transmit objective truth a “liberal
superstition”3. Enzensberger believes that the new is egalitarian. It doesn’t
require a high degree if intellectual still to a part of it. For example to write a
book you need to have a body of knowledge, the ability to spell and form
sentences. You don’t need this for the talk into a microphone. In the past radical

1
Hans Magnus Enzensberger, The Consciousness industry: On Literature, Politics
and the Media (New York: The Seabury Press, 1974) 99
2
Ibid, 98
3
Ibid, 100
ideas were spread by books among an educated elite. With the mass media
radical ideas could be spread among the proletariat.

For Enzensberger the book has little revolutionary potential. For him books as a
medium are irredeemably authoritarian. Writing requires are ‘rigid bodily
posture’4. Writing is formal. You learn to write in a authoritarian environment.
School is a person’s first time away from the home. Enzenberger compares
writing with speech. Speech is learned naturally in life without pressure.
Language is picked up naturally in the course of everyday life in childhood. There
is no separation between learning to speak and childhood activities such as
playing. Language is learned without being classes and tests. There is no
authoritarian structure to everyday conversations. People are on the same level
when they speak. There is no impediment to any person interacting with
another. Speech is learned in a psychologically healthy environment. This is not
the case with writing where are taboos. Spelling are not mistakes, on the whole,
impediments to communication are considered a taboo. Voices are excluded
from the debate because they break this taboo. For Enzensberger the only use
this taboo serves is to the preserve an elite and it’s ideas. Writing is learned in
psychologically unhealthy manner. It is fundamentally unrealistic. In speech we
stammer, hesitate, forget words etc. In the writing this is always smoothed out so
that we don’t see the mistakes. The illusion of total correctness is created that
cloaks the writer. This alienated the reader who may be conscious of her own
limitations as writer. Because of the elitist conventions of publishing no writer
can be published without meeting these requirements of good grammer etc. It is
nearly impossible to respond to a writer because you need to part of the book
producing system in the first place. The book isolates the public and writer.

4
Ibid, 122