Page 13 - Critical Theory of Communication as Critical Sociology of Critique

FUCHS: CRITICAL THEORY OF COMMUNICATION AS CRITICAL SOCIOLOGY OF CRITIQUE IN THE AGE OF DIGITAL CAPITALISM

the foundations of a critical theory of communication and digital media. Engaging with his essay has allowed
me to ref ect on some of the meta-issues that underlie my own writing and research approach.
I have argued that not creativity, but social production and social relations are for Marx the foundation of the
critical theory of society. Creativity is not a demand or ideal, but a fundamental human capacity. I have stressed
the importance of Boltanski and Chiapello’s ideology critique for a critical theory of communication and digi-
tal media with respect to the analysis of how seemingly progressive concepts such as networks, participation,
creativity, self-organisation, sharing, the gift, etc. can be subsumed under capitalist ideology. I have, however,
also stressed the limits of Boltanski and Chiapello’s approach, namely their lack of focus on ideological contra-
dictions, their reduction of Marx’s concept of alienation to a purely subjective level, and their limitation of critical
sociology to a sociology of critique.
I have argued for the approach of critical theory as a critical sociology of critique that combines social phi-
losophy, empirical social research and ethics. I argue that such a critical theory of society is the foundation for a
critical theory of communication and digital media, and that an adequate understanding of contemporary com-
munications needs to start with concrete phenomena, to abstract from them, and then ascend from the abstract
to the concrete in a dialectical manner. Marx should be the dialectical starting point, but not the end point of
such endeavours. We need to develop and apply Marx’s theory and categories and need to draw on various
traditions of Marxist and critical thought for developing critical understandings of the contemporary world and
its communication phenomena.

References

Allmer, Thomas, Christian Fuchs, Verena Kreilinger and Sebastian Sevignani. (2014). Social Networking Sites
in the Surveillance Society: Critical Perspectives and Empirical Findings. In Media, Surveillance and Identity.
Social Perspectives, ed. André Jansson and Miyase Christensen, 49-70. New York: Peter Lang.

Althusser, Louis. (1993). The Future Lasts Forever. A Memoir. New York: The New Press.
Althusser, Louis. (1969). For Marx. London: Verso.
Boltanski, Luc. 2011. On Critique. A Sociology of Emancipation. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Boltanski, Luc and Ève Chiapello. (2005). The New Spirit of Capitalism. London: Verso.
Boltanski, Luc and Axel Honneth. (2009). Soziologie der Kritik oder Kritische Theorie? In Was ist Kritik?, 81-
114, ed. Rahel Jaeggi and Tilo Wesche, 81-114. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, pp. 81-114.
Fisher, Eran. 2010. Media and New Capitalism in the Digital Age: The Spirit of Networks. Basingstoke:
Palgrave Macmillan.
Fuchs, Christian. (2016a Forthcoming). Critical Theory of Communication: Lukács, Adorno, Marcuse, Honneth
and Habermas in the Age of the Internet and Social Media. London: University of Westminster Press.
Fuchs, Christian. (2016b). Digital Labor and Imperialism. Monthly Review 67 (8), http://monthlyreview.
org/2016/01/01/digital-labor-and-imperialism/
Fuchs, Christian. (2016c). Reading Marx in the Information Age. A Media and Communication Studies
Perspective on “Capital Volume I”. New York: Routledge.
Fuchs, Christian. (2015). Culture and economy in the age of social media. New York: Routledge.
Fuchs, Christian. (2014a). Anonymous: Hacktivism and Contemporary Politics. In Social Media, Politics and
the State: Protests, Revolutions, Riots, Crime and Policing in the Age of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, ed.
Daniel Trottier and Christian Fuchs, 88-106. New York: Routledge.
Fuchs, Christian. (2014b). Digital Labour and Karl Marx. New York: Routledge.
Fuchs, Christian. (2014c). Social Media: A Critical Introduction. London: Sage.
Fuchs, Christian. (2013). The Anonymous Movement in the Context of Liberalism and Socialism. Interface: A

CONJUNCTIONS, VOL. 3, NO. 1, 2016, ISSN 2246-3755 | PAGE 13