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Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft
Germany and Critical Theory
Glasgow University Media Group
Globalization

GEMEINSCHAFT and GESELLSCHAFT
Ferdinand Toennies' terms:

In categorizing societies, he compared Gemeinschaft: pre-industrial, rural village communities -- where everyone else knew each other intimately with Gesellschaft, an urban, mechanical society in which people only knew each other in non-personal, professional terms. Such a view makes the individual easy prey for authoritarian impulses


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GERMANY and CRITICAL THEORY

I. Germany before the Weimar republic
1) Early 20th-century German critical theory was presaged by 19th-century German Romanticism, Humanism, and Idealism, all initiated by the Sturm und Drang movement. "Reacting against what they took to be the mechanistic, atomistic, and utilitarian directions of Enlightenment thought in England and particularly France, Herder, Kant, Goethe, Schiller, Fichte, Hegel, and others insisted on the moral authority, creative will, and self-expression of human beings." Idealist philosophers such as Kant and Hegel, in particular, sought to "redefine 'reason' and 'progress' by connecting with the role of the 'subject' in cognition." This was the "Hegelian dialectic of active mind and objective reality" (Lunn, Marxism and Modernism, pp. 28-30).

2) Before WWI in Germany the artistic trend was towards Expressionism (wild Utopianism different from the old order).
2) But if expressionism is dashed (as it was in WWI) It can be replaced by nihilism.
4) Especially after WWI, radical and communist figures replaced expressionism with dadaism, Cabaret-style culture (silly, absurd); rejected society artistically.

In a nutshell: Expressionism > WWI > Nihilism > Dada

II. Weimar Germany

1.) After the collapse of the Hohenzollern empire, political/art groupings were involved in local governments and helped form the new Republic.
2.) Weimar emerged as a left-wing Republic.
3.) It was seen by the right as a Jewish Republic and symbolising Germany's defeat.
4.) Left-wing tensions made Weimar fragile and unstable.
5.) After WWI, an underfunded and concentrated industry combined with a progressive decline in the position of workers to create political instability and popular discontent.
6.) Three stages of the Weimar Republic:

    a.) 1918-1924 Weimar is in crisis even as it is formed, political and economic upheavals persist.
    b.) 1924-1929 The Dawes plan (US finance in German industry to secure German democracy); this stabilizes the economy and the currency; also strabilizes the arts (wild Dada experimentation of 1918-1924 is stabilized).
    c.) 1929-1933 Depression, economic crisis, and eventual political collapse.

See also:

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GLASGOW UNIVERSITY MEDIA GROUP

Scottish research group that publishes NeoMarxian critiques of media texts and images, e.g., Bad News and More Bad News.


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GLOBALIZATION


In a nutshell, the tendency of the world to "shrink" and be perceived in unified, unitary terms. Think about McLuhan's "Global Village" or Jameson's ideas about late capitalism, for example.

Intensifying globalization means:

    a) global capital floats all over the world, states often lose control (e.g., Black Wednesday).
    b) fewer and fewer people control more and more production.

The process of globalization has all kinds of implications for culture and cultural theory. Is there a true "global culture" emerging, for example?

Globalization of News = Cultural Imperialism?

One current debate about the effects of globalism and globalization on the developing world pits supporters of a global news system as a beneficial thing (Gurevitch, etc.) against those who think it is a pernicious, oppresive system (Mowlana, Hamelink, etc.).

People like Gurevitch assume that "national broadcasters are capable of and responsible for selecting and repackaging information to best suit their conceptions of domestic needs". On the other hand, those who argue against the benefits of the global system — Hamelink, Mowlana et al — assert that "Western powers monopolize this information system and damage the development plans and cultures of nations that wield less power in the global information system" (ibid.).

Although both sides disagree about the effects of the global information system, one they sides agree on, according to Carrier, is that "news is culturally dependent," and as such it is "both product and producer of the culture in which it is produced" (Carrier, 177).

Even so, the sides return to disagreement about what kind of culture, or whose culture, the news reflects/produces. She explains this in terms of two main schools of thought: theories of globalization (the Mowlana/Hamelink group, reflected in the work of the MacBride round tables); and news content research (Gurevitch, etc.) which "postulates how news is adapted to domestic audiences" (Carrier, 177).


Intellectual trends in relation to globalization.

1945 - mid-1960s: U.S./Western institutions consolidate their hold on the world, even as the old European powers begin decolonization. Western economic, media models supreme, unchallenged outside Communist bloc - even in much of Third World, in spite of decolonization

Academic world during this period supports progressive development, "modernization" of Third World (e.g., Daniel Lerner) · Third World largely accepts.

Academic focus #1 Daniel Lerner (1950) - The Passing of Traditional Society: Modernizing the Middle East

Modernization theory
1. Third World in a process of development from a traditional to a " modernized" state.
2. Process was more-or-less inevitable
3. The Western model was the only progressive model to which countries should aspire.
4. Western media (BBC World Service, VOA, Radio Moscow, Hollywood movies) had major part to play in developing "modern" attitudes.

Late 1960s - 1980: U.S./Western economic, media models begin to be challenged by Third World: e.g., Non-Aligned Movement and NWIO. · Academic world more critical of Western "modernization" theory; · instead posits U.S./Western influences as pernicious, not progressive, e.g., dependency theory (core-periphery), "cultural imperialism" (e.g., Herb Schiller), media imperialism (e.g., How to Read Donald Duck) · Even rich Western nations (e.g., Canada, France) complain about media imperialism

Academic focus #2: Herb Schiller (from late 1960s)

1. Hypothesized "core-periphery" relations, aka neo-Marxist dependency theory
2. Rejected modernization theory
3. Former colonies still economically and culturally dependent on West
4. Dominant role given to Western media and TNC's
5. Media imperialism an extension of broader cultural imperialism
6. Informed NWIO debate in UNESCO.


Early 1980s - 1990s: COLLAPSE of Third World challenge to Western economic/media orthodoxy.

U.S. reasserts itself (Reagan) NWIO defeated in UN USSR weakened, then collapses · Academic discourse on globalization becomes more ambiguous · Still many proponents of dependency, media imperialism, but other theories challenge their validity, at least in part. The intellectual debate had moved on. Just as modernization theory had been party usurped by dependency theory, so dependency theory was in turn challenged by two new approaches.

A. "Core-periphery" -- partly challenged by Asymmetrical interdependence

B. Cultural imperialism -- partly challenged by Reception Theory (see Encoding-decoding)

See also:

CT. Subject Index Gg

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Last Updated: feb. 27, 2001