Page 136 - CULTURE IN THE COMMUNICATION AGE

CULTURAL FRONTS

objective frame of meta-processes in which trans-object relations operate; that
is, relations across all the different fields that establish, for certain periods, a type
of hierarchy among them. So we can find ‘trans-fields’ levels of struggle for the
exercise of symbolic power.
We must therefore understand the fields of power like the ‘field of fields’, a
global social space in which every field and element occupies a position that is
in constant tension. In order to preserve the fields and operate with maximum
symbolic efficacy, each cultural institution must generate and maintain a public,
an audience, a clientele, or followers over time. The audiences are placed, but
arrive in constant motion, in a determined state of distribution and access to
the specific social energy of this very field. The specialized institutions must be
able to obtain and focus people’s attention; that is their bio-time (Romano
1998). These institutions must design multiple, flexible, symbolic strategies to
anticipate the potential audience for their productions (a book, song, sermon,
news story, scientific paper, and so on). The core of these organizational
strategies should always feature some discursive elaboration upon an elemen-
tally human theme. That way the public should be able to identify, select, and
attend to the symbolic productions of the specialized agents. Thus we find
ourselves to be ‘Christians, fans, followers, amateurs, members, consumers, or
militants’. This symbolic efficacy is then translated into habitus and into a
kind of ‘distributed self’. Clearly, nothing like pure individuality or isolated
taste exists. Thinking this way, the non-subjective approach to subjectivity
(Bourdieu 1993) can be reinforced with the notion of ‘distributed cognition’
(Salomon 1993), to create a productive dialogue with the neo-Vygotskian
developments of the mind as action (Werscht 1998).
The ideological livelihood of modern societies implies, on the one hand, the
specialized discursive elaboration of meaning by a set of specific institutions
and agents, and, on the other hand, non-specialized social agents living in a pre-
interpreted social world (Giddens 1989). The persistence and prevalence of
large-scale discursive formations is constructed through a process of gaining
and losing ideological efficacy. When a constructed symbolic configuration
can no longer be part of our ‘selves’, that is, when it is no longer embodied in
social agents, then a process of dilution and decay begins. This is the moment in
which the elements of its composition can be disembedded, reordered, and
reorganized around a different kind of symbolic and discursive axis. As human
beings we cannot stop producing meanings. We are ourselves meaningful
entities. We dwell not only in the material world but inside discursive, symbolic
universes too.
This question of discourse, therefore, is crucial. Any discourse implies a ten-
sional, specific composition of meaning. The specificity of that composition,
however, is always linked to counter-compositions and counter-discourses that
make up discursive social space, a kind of discursive market in which any entry
generates, gains, or loses value. That is the space of position-taking. These
processes occur as time passes through the actions of social agents, whether

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