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01Consuming Media 10/4/07 11:17 am Page 47

It is common to misunderstand the concept of use value as covering only the most
immediate and simple material uses of any product so that symbolic, relational or
status values would be some different addition, specific to late capitalism. The idea is
widespread in postmodernist versions of cultural studies, which announce a
completely new era of simulacra, confining use value within an oversimplified vulgar
materialism. A closer look at Marx’s commodity analysis reveals that he also found it
obvious that use values might well be of very indirect, social or symbolic kinds.
Human needs always include social and aesthetic ones, and commodities – not least
those of media and popular culture – have thus always had a wide range of such use
values, including imaginary aspects of fantasy and social bonding. When looking at
media commodities, this is even more striking, since media texts are always used for
symbolic communication invoking aspects of imagination, rather than feeding the
stomach or warming the body. 2
The four variants of disposal provide a number of possibilities. When destroyed
the product/article is turned into waste. When given away as a present it remains an
article for everyday use, while the owner becomes a giver. When reselling it, the
customer/user becomes a seller and the article of use becomes a commodity – though
probably with a lower second-hand value than when it was new (apart from cases
when it has become an antiquity or has a value for collectors). For the simplest case
with an individual commodity and consumer, the complete process can be summa-
rized in the following table:

TABLE 2.1: Phases of Consumption
Phase Selection Purchase Use Disposal: Destroy/give
away/exchange/resell
Object Commodity Commodity Utility goods Waste/gift/barter
object/commodity
Consumer Selector Customer User & owner Destroyer/giver/
barterer/seller

WHAT IS A MEDIUM?
Communication is a process that generates meaning; it is the production, exchange
and sharing of meaning and cannot be reduced to the transference of messages or
information. This perspective is the basis of the cultural or ritual perspective on
3
media and communication. Media can then be described as the apparatuses of
human symbolic systems, a material base that makes it possible for these systems to
mediate (transfer or share) meaning between and among people. If culture is based
on communication, media as vehicles of meaning and tools for signifying practices
are the material technologies and institutional apparatuses of culture.
Although most people would agree that one could write a message in sand with a
twig, few would accept that a twig on a beach is a medium. Considerably more

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