The Culture Industry, Information and Capitalism

This study shares the tendency, which has been widely maintained in Europe over recent years, to approach the problems of communication and the culture industry with the tools of economic theory. The oldest approaches to the mass communications media have often been criticized, and basically viewed from the standpoint of political domination and ideological reproduction. The critical aspect of the communication and culture economy, by contrast, is that attention has been focused on investigating the functions of the media in the process of capital accumulation, thereby prioritizing the problems of advertising and the mass communications media as a privileged locus for the accumulation of capital at the current stage of capitalist development. Drawing on Marxist theory and concepts, as well as on various theoretical contributions developed by prominent political economists, Bolaño develops a unique approach to understanding the culture industry, offering an interesting intervention in debates surrounding media and communication.

Drawing on Marxist theory and concepts, as well as on various theoretical contributions developed by prominent political economists, Bolano develops a unique approach to understanding the culture industry, offering an interesting intervention in debates surrounding media and communication.

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Introduction1. The Contradictions of Information
Simple Circulation and Information
Information and Capitalist Production
Capital and State, Advertising and Propaganda
The Bourgeois Public Sphere as Embodiment of the Contradictions of Information in Competitive Capitalism
2. Monopoly Capitalism and the Culture Industry
The New Configuration of Capital
Transformations in the State Sphere
Structural Change of the Public Sphere and the Advertising-Propaganda Contradiction
Capitalism and Lifestyle
Observations on the History of the Culture Industry
3. The Culture Industry and its Functions
The Culture Industry and Propaganda: Approaches based on the Concept of Ideological Apparatuses
The Form of the Mass Media Apparatus: Cesareo and the Italian School
Cultural Dependency Theories
The Culture Industry and Advertising
Advertising and Sales Promotion in Baran and Sweezy
Dallas Smythe´s Audience Production
Advertising and Consumer Goods
Advertising and Added Value

4. The Political Economy of Communications and Culture
The French Tradition
The French School (Second Generation)
5. From Production to Competition: Towards the Reconstruction of the Communications and Culture Economy
Reflections on Television and Competition
An Alternative Theoretical Approach
An Alternative Theoretical Approach: the Dual Nature of Products in the Culture Industry
The Symbolic Space
Techno-Aesthetic Standards
Towards a Regulation-Based Analysis
An Analytical Model for the Audiovisual
The Dynamic of the Complete Model

6. Subsumption of Intellectual Work and the Political Economy of the Internet
Intellectual Work
The Political Economy of the Internet
Internet Convergence: an Analysis Model
Internet Economy: Two Important Contributions
The Social Logic of the Internet and the GNU / LINUX system
Free Software as an Alternative Model

Conclusion and Prospects: Communication and Capitalism in the 21st Century

Bibliography