<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><br></div><div><blockquote type="cite"><div>DALLAS SMYTHE - Communications: Blindspot of Western Marxism 266-7<br></div></blockquote><br></div>This is available online as a PDF here:<div><br></div><div><a href="http://www.ctheory.net/library/journal.asp?journalid=3">http://www.ctheory.net/library/journal.asp?journalid=3</a></div><div><br></div><div>Best</div><div><br></div><div>David</div><div><br></div><div><br><div><div>On 7 Jul 2009, at 10:21, Sean Cubitt wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div>Trebor suggested mentioning another of the lost Canadian connections (Innis<br>and MacLuhan occupying such visibility we rarely note some of the other<br>amazing contributors. The thesis of attention value in his work dates back<br>to the later 1950s, this is just one I have on file for lectures<br><br>DALLAS SMYTHE - Communications: Blindspot of Western Marxism 266-7<br><br>I submit that the materialist answer to the question – What is the commodity<br>form of mass-produced, advertiser-supported communications under monopoly<br>capitalism? – is audiences and readerships (hereafter referred to for<br>simplicity as audiences). The material reality under monopoly capitalism is<br>that all non-sleeping time of most of the population is work time. This work<br>time is devoted to the production of commodities-in-general (both where<br>people get paid for their work and as members of audiences) and in the<br>production and reproduction of labour power (the pay for which is subsumed<br>in their income). Of the off-the-job work time, the largest single block is<br>time of the audiences which is sold to advertisers. It is not sold by<br>workers but by the mass media of communications. Who produces this<br>commodity? The mass media of communications do by the mix of explicit and<br>hidden advertising and "programme" material, the markets for which preoccupy<br>the bourgeois communication theorists . . . . In "their" time which is sold<br>to advertisers workers a) perform essential marketing functions for the<br>producers of consumers' goods and b) work at the production and reproduction<br>of labour power. This joint process, as shall be noted, embodies a principal<br>contradiction . . .the mass media of communications are simultaneously in<br>the superstructure and engaged indispensably in the last stage of<br>infrastructural production where demand is satisfied by purchaes of consumer<br>goods. <br><br><br><br>Smythe, Dallas (1994), 'Communications: Blindspot of Western Marxism [1977]'<br>in Smythe, , Counterclockwise: Perspectives on Communication, ed Thomas<br>Guback, Westview Press, Boulder CO., 266-291; orignial Canadian Journal of<br>Political and Social Theory, v.1 n.3, Fall 1977, pp 1-27. .<br><br>Worth noting too James Beniger's contention in The Control revolution that<br>the origins of advertising lie in a crisis of control (his term - I would<br>say a crisis of overproduction) in manufacture and distribution,<br>specifically of oats, until then bought bulk for horses, but from the 1870s<br>sold in 2 pound packages with the boxes branded Quaker Oats. He regards this<br>as a way of controlling consumtion to match manufacture/distribution.<br><br>sean<br><br><br>Prof Sean Cubitt<br><a href="mailto:scubitt@unimelb.edu.au">scubitt@unimelb.edu.au</a><br>Director<br>Media and Communications Program<br>Faculty of Arts<br>Room 127 John Medley East<br>The University of Melbourne<br>Parkville VIC 3010<br>Australia<br><br>Tel: + 61 3 8344 3667<br>Fax:+ 61 3 8344 5494<br>M: 0448 304 004<br>Skype: seancubitt<br>http://www.culture-communication.unimelb.edu.au/media-communications/<br>http://www.digital-light.net.au/<br>http://homepage.mac.com/waikatoscreen/<br>http://seancubitt.blogspot.com/<br>http://del.icio.us/seancubitt<br><br>Editor-in-Chief Leonardo Book Series<br>http://leonardo.info<br><br>_______________________________________________<br>iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity (distributedcreativity.org)<br>iDC@mailman.thing.net<br>https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc<br><br>List Archive:<br>http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/<br><br>iDC Photo Stream:<br>http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/<br><br>RSS feed:<br>http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc<br><br>iDC Chat on Facebook:<br>http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647<br><br>Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref<br></div></blockquote></div><br><div apple-content-edited="true"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><div>---</div><div><br class="khtml-block-placeholder"></div><div>Dr. David M. Berry</div><div><br></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#480C09"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(72, 12, 9); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(72, 12, 9); ">Room 412</span></span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#480C09"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(72, 12, 9); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(72, 12, 9); ">Media and Communications Department</span></span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#480C09"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(72, 12, 9); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(72, 12, 9); ">School of Arts</span></span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#480C09"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(72, 12, 9); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(72, 12, 9); ">University of Wales Swansea</span></span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#480C09"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(72, 12, 9); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(72, 12, 9); ">Swansea</span></span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#480C09"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(72, 12, 9); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(72, 12, 9); ">SA2 8PP</span></span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#480C09"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(72, 12, 9); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(72, 12, 9); ">Wales, UK</span></span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#480C09"><br class="khtml-block-placeholder"></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Tel: x2633</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Email: <a href="mailto:d.m.berry@swansea.ac.uk">d.m.berry@swansea.ac.uk</a></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Web: <a href="http://www.swansea.ac.uk/staff/academic/Arts/berryd/">http://www.swansea.ac.uk/staff/academic/Arts/berryd/</a></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#480C09"></font></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"></span></div></span></div></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"></div></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"></div></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"> </div><br></div></body></html>