传播及其批判:受众商品和数字劳工

Communication and Critique:Audience Commodity and Digital Labour

作为传播政治经济学的奠基人,斯迈思使用受众商品和数字劳工来管窥资本主义视域下媒介的局限性,进而对资本主义媒介商业化运作所带来的社会全面物化进行了深刻批判,揭示出受众被媒介操控的恐怖境地。斯迈思的批判与马克思主义的政治经济学批判有异曲同工之处,是马克思物化批判思想在新的场域下产生的新形式。尽管这种新形式汲取了西方马克思主义、法兰克福学派以及新一代传播研究领域学者的思想理论精髓,但仍面临着各种挑战和考验,要想持续发展必须不断进行自我反思和自我批判。

As the founder of the political economy of communication,Dallas Smythe uses audience commodity and digital labour to observe the limitations of media under the perspective of capitalism.And then he criticizes the media commercialization in capitalism profoundly,which brings full materialization in the society,to reveal the terror circumstances faced by audiences under the media manipulation.This critical theory and the critique of Marxist political economy have different approaches but equally satisfactory results.It is a new form produced by Marx’s thought of the critique of materialization under the new field.Although this new form absorbs the essence of thoughts and theories of Western Marxism,Frankfurt school as well as the new generation of scholars in field of communication,the theory is still faced with various challenges and tests.In order to sustain growth,the theory must keep self-reflection and self-criticism.