作为技艺的宣传——埃吕尔论技艺社会与宣传

Propaganda as Technique: Ellul On the Technique Society and Propaganda

埃吕尔是从旧宣传研究向新宣传研究转型的关键人物,也是一位影响深远的技术哲学家,其宣传研究建立在其技术哲学基础之上。他从哲学社会学视角剖析了技艺社会的整体逻辑,并以技艺社会的整体逻辑反思了作为社会现象的宣传,以及技艺与宣传所导致的政治幻象。埃吕尔的宣传研究超越了视宣传者意图决定的相对主义,也不同于考察宣传效果的实证主义,直指宣传的本质。埃吕尔对传播学的贡献不止于宣传研究,他实际上提供了一整套关于媒介、个体和社会的宏大叙事。在媒介技术广泛渗透的当下,埃吕尔对宣传技艺的哲学社会学阐释对传播技术主义研究范式颇具启发。在将传播现象作为整体来考察并关注媒介形式方面,埃吕尔与麦克卢汉有共同之处,但前者将技术作为整体隐喻坚持的更为彻底。与麦克卢汉的文学背景不同,其宣传研究的理论取向源自卡尔·马克思和马克斯·韦伯的社会学。

Ellul played a key role in the transformation of western propaganda study, meanwhile he was also a famous philosopher of technology. His propaganda research is based on the philosophy of technique. From the perspective of philosophy and sociology, Ellul explored the logic of the technological society, and reflected on propaganda as a technique and the western democratic illusion caused by technique and propaganda with the logic of the technological society. He goes beyond the relativism determined by the propagandist’s intention, and also different from the positivism to investigate the publicity effect, pointing directly to the essence of propaganda. His contribution to communication is far more than propaganda research. He actually provides a set of grand narratives about media, individuals and society. Nowadays, media technology has widely penetrated into human society. Ellul’s social philosophical interpretation of propaganda may inspire the technicism research paradigm of communication. In terms of investigating and paying attention to the form of media phenomenon as a whole, Ellul and Mc Luhan have something in common, but he insists on technique as a whole metaphor more thoroughly, and different from Mc Luhan’s literary background, his theoretical orientation of propaganda research originates from the sociology of Karl Marx and Max Weber.