【鲍德里亚-研究】《鲍德里亚——一个新的麦克卢汉》(英文)

Baudrillard: A New McLuhan?

By Douglas Kellner

During the 1980s, Jean Baudrillard has been promoted in certain circles as the new McLuhan, as the most advanced theorist of the media and society in the so-called postmodern era.[1] His theory of a new, postmodern society rests on a key assumption that the media, simulations, and what he calls "cyberblitz" constitute a new realm of experience and a new stage of history and type of society. To a large extent, Baudrillard's work consists in rethinking radical social theory and politics in the light of developments of the consumer, media, information, and technological society. Baudrillard's earlier works focus on the construction of the consumer society and how it provides a new world of values, meaning, and activity, and thus inhabit the terrain of Marxism and political economy. From the mid-1970s on, however, reflections on political economy and the consumer society disappear almost completely from his texts, and henceforth simulations and simulacra, media and information, science and new technologies, and implosion and hyperreality become the constituents of a new postmodern world which -- in his theorizing -- obliterate all the boundaries, categories, and values of the previous forms of industrial society while establishing new forms of social organization, thought, and experience.

Among Baudrillard's most provocative theses are his reflections on the role of the media in constituting the postmodern world. Indeed, he provides paradigmatic models of the media as all-powerful and autonomous social forces which produce a wide range of effects.[2] To explicate the development and contours of his positions on the media, I shall follow his reflections from the late 1960s to the present, and sort out what I consider to be his contributions and limitations. I shall also be concerned to delineate the political implications of his media theory and to point to alternative theoretical and political perspectives on the media.

Baudrillard's Postmodern Media Theory

In 1967, Baudrillard wrote a review of Marshall McLuhan's _Understanding Media_ in which he claimed that McLuhan's dictum that the "medium is the message" is "the very formula of alienation in a technical society," and he criticized McLuhan for naturalizing that alienation.[3] At this time, he shared the neo-Marxian critique of McLuhan as a technological reductionist and determinist. By the 1970s and 1980s, however, McLuhan's formula eventually became the guiding principle of his own thought.

Baudrillard begins developing his theory of the media in an article "Requiem for the Media" in _Toward a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign_ (1972). The title is somewhat ironic for Baudrillard is really only beginning to develop a social theory in

which the media will play crucial roles in constituting a new postmodernity. Thus Baudrillard is really writing a requiem here for a 'Marxist theory of the media' arguing: "McLuhan has said, with his usual Canadian-Texan brutalness, that Marx, the spiritual contemporary of the steam engine and railroads, was already obsolete in his lifetime with the appearance of the telegraph. In his candid fashion, he is saying that Marx, in his materialist analysis of production, had virtually circumscribed productive forces as a privileged domain from which language, signs and communication in general found themselves excluded" (CPES, p. 164). Baudrillard's critique of Marx here begins a radical interrogation of and eventual break with Marxism which would culminate in _The Mirror of Production_ (1973). Baudrillard begins distancing himself from Marxism in "Requiem for the Media," and in particular attacks Marx's alleged economic reductionism, or "productivism," and the alleged inability of the Marxian theory to conceptualize language, signs, and communication (Habermas at the time was developing a parallel position within Critical Theory).[4]

As an example of the failure of Marxian categories to provide an adequate theory of the media, Baudrillard criticizes the German activist and writer Hans Magnus Enzensberger's media theory and his attempts to develop a socialist strategy for the media.[5] Baudrillard dismisses this effort as a typical Marxian attempt to liberate productive forces from the fetters of productive relations that fails to see that in their very form the mass media of communication "are anti-mediatory and intransitive. They fabricate non communication -- this is what characterizes them, if one agrees to define communication as an exchange, as a reciprocal space of a speech and a response, and thus of a responsibility (not a psychological or moral responsibility, but a personal, mutual correlation in exchange) .... they are what always prevents response, making all processes of exchange impossible (except in the various forms of response simulation, themselves integrated in the transmission process, thus leaving the unilateral nature of the communication intact). This is the real abstraction of the media. And the system of social control and power is rooted in it" (CPES, pp. 169-170).

It is curious that Baudrillard, interpreted by many of his followers as an avant-garde, postmodern media theorist, manifests in this passage both technophobia and a nostalgia for face-to-face conversation which he privileges (as authentic communication) over debased and abstract media communication. Such a position creates a binary dichotomy between "good" face-to-face communication and "bad" media communication, and thus occludes the fact that interpersonal communication can be just as manipulative, distorted, reified, and son on, as media communication (as Ionesco and Habermas, among others, were aware), while ruling out in advance the possibility of "responsible" or "emancipatory" media communication -- a point that I shall return to in conclusion.

In another study in the _Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign_, Baudrillard noted how the "TV Object" was becoming the center of the household and was serving an essential "proof function" that the owner was a genuine member of the consumer society (CPRES, pp. 53ff.). The accelerating role of the media in contemporary society is for Baudrillard equivalent to THE FALL into the postmodern society of simulations from the modern universe of production. Modernity for Baudrillard is thus the era of production

characterized by the rise of industrial capitalism and the hegemony of the bourgeoisie while postmodern society is an era of simulation dominated by signs, codes, and models. Modernity thus centered on the production of things -commodities and products -- while postmodernity is characterized by radical semiurgy, by a proliferation of signs. Furthermore, following McLuhan, Baudrillard interprets modernity as a process of explosion of commodification, mechanization, technology, and market relations, while postmodern society is the site of an implosion of all boundaries, regions, and distinctions between high and low culture, appearence and reality, and just about every other binary opposition maintained by traditional philosophy and social theory. F urthermore, while modernity could be characterized as a process of increasing differentiation of spheres of life (Max Weber as interpreted by Habermas), postmodernity could be interpreted as a process of de-differentiation and attendent implosion.[6]

The rise of the broadcast media, especially television, is an important constituent of postmodernity for Baudrillard, along with the rapid dissemination of signs and simulacra in every realm of social and everyday life. By the late 1970s, Baudrillard interprets the media as key simulation machines which reproduce images, signs, and codes which constitute an autonomous realm of (hyper)reality and which come to play a key role in everyday life and the obliteration of the social.[7] Baudrillard's analyses of simulations and hyperreality probably constitute his most important contributions to social theory and media critique. During an era when movie actors simulate politics and charlatans simulate TV-religion the category of simulation provides an essential instrument of radical social critique, while the concept of hyperreality is also an extremely useful instrument of social analysis for a media, cybernetic, and information society. Baudrillard's analyses point to a significant reversal of the relation between representation and reality. Previously, the media were believed to mirror, reflect, or represent reality, whereas now the media are coming to constitute a (hyper)reality, a new media reality -- "more real than real" -- where "the real" is subordinate to representation leading to an ultimate dissolving of the real. In addition, in "The Implosion of Meaning in the Media," Baudrillard claims that the proliferation of signs and information in the media obliterates meaning through neutralizing and dissolving all content -- a process which leads both to a collapse of meaning and the destruction of distinctions between media and reality. In a society supposedly saturated with media messages, information and meaning "implode," collapsing into meaningless "noise," pure effect without content or meaning. Thus, for Baudrillard: "information is directly destructive of meaning and signification, or neutralizes it. The loss of meaning is directly linked to the dissolving and dissuasive action of information, the media, and the mass media.... Information devours its own contents; it devours communication and the social.... information dissolves meaning and the social into a sort of nebulous state leading not at all to a surfeit of innovation but to the very contrary, to total entropy" (SSM, pp. 96-100).

Baudrillard uses here a model of the media as a black hole of signs and information which absorb all contents into cybernetic noise which no longer communicates meaningful messages in a process of implosion where all content implodes into form. We thus see here how Baudrillard eventually adopts McLuhan's media theory as his own,

claiming that: "the medium is the message signifies not only the end of the message, but also the end of the medium. There are no longer media in the literal sense of the term (I am talking above all about the electronic mass media) -- that is to say, a power mediating between one reality and another, between one state of the real and another -- neither in content nor in form. Strictly speaking this is what implosion signifies: the absorption of one pole into another, the short-circuit between poles of every differential system of meaning, the effacement of terms and of distinct oppositions, and thus that of the medium and the real. Hence the impossibility of any mediation, of any dialectical intervention between the two or from one to the other, circularity of all media effects. Hence the impossibility of a sense (meaning), in the literal sense of a unilateral vector which leads from one pole to another. This critical -- but original -- situation must be thought through to the very end; it is the only one we are left with. It is useless to dream of a revolution through content or through form, since the medium and the real are now in a single nebulous state whose truth is undecipherable" (SSM, pp. 102-103).

In effect, Baudrillard is suggesting that the very project of developing a radical theory of the media is impossible because there really are no "media" in the sense of institutions and cultural machines mediating between dominant political and economic powers and the population below. He claims that the media and "reality" implode such that it is impossible to distinguish between media representations and the "reality" which they supposedly represent. Baudrillard also suggests that the media intensify massification by producing mass audiences and massification of ideas and experience. On the other hand, he claims that the masses absorb all media content, neutralize, or even resist, meaning, and demand and obtain more spectacle and entertainment, thus further eroding the boundary between media and "the real." In this sense, the media implode into the masses to an extent that it is unknowable what effects the media have on the masses and how the masses process the media.

Consequently, on this view, the media pander to the masses, reproducing their taste, their interest in spectacle and entertainment, their fantasies and way of life, producing an implosion between mass consciousness and media phantasmagoria. In this way, Baudrillard shortcircuits the manipulation theory which sees media manipulation imposed from above producing mass consciousness, yet he seems to share the contempt for the masses in standard manipulation theory claiming that they want nothing more than spectacle, diversion, entertainment and escape, and are incapable of, or uninterested in, producing meaning.

In any case, since the media and the masses liquidate meaning, it is meaningless to carry out ideological critiques of media messages since the "medium is the message" in the sense that media communication has no significant referents except its own images and noise which ceaselessly refer back and forth to other media images and spectacles. In

_On Seduction_ (1979), Baudrillard utilizes McLuhan's distinction between "hot" and "cool" media to describe the ways that media devour information and exterminate meaning. According to Baudrillard, the media take "hot" events like sports, wars, political turmoil, catastrophes, etc. and transform them into "cool" media events, which he interprets as altogether another kind of event and experience. Concerning the

difference between a televised and attended sports event, Baudrillard writes: "Do not believe that it is a matter of the same game: one is hot, the other is cool -- one is a contest where affect, challenge, mise en scene, and spectacle are present, whereas the other is tactile, modulated (visions in flash-back, replays, close-ups or overhead views, various angles, etc.): a televised sports event is above all a televised event, just as _Holocaust_ or the Vietnam war are televised events of which one can hardly make distinctions" (SED, p. 217).

For Baudrillard, eventually, all the dominant media become "cool," erasing McLuhan's (problematical) distinction between hot and cool media. That is, for Baudrillard all the media of information and communication neutralize meaning and involve the audience in a flat, one-dimensional media experience which he defines in terms of a passive absorption of images, or a resistance of meaning, rather than the active processing or production of meaning. The electronic media therefore on this account have nothing to do with myth, image, history, or the construction of meaning (or ideology). Television is interpreted instead as a media "which suggests nothing, which magnetises, which is only a screen, or is rather a miniaturized terminal which in fact is found immediately in your head -- you are the screen and the television is watching you. Television transistorizes a ll neurons and operates as a magnetic tape -- a tape not an image" (SED, p. 220). Baudrillard, McLuhan and the Ecstasy of Communication

We see here how Baudrillard out-McLuhans McLuhan in interpreting television, and all other media, simply as technological forms, as machines which produce primarily technological effects in which content and messages, or social uses, are deemed irrelevant and unimportant. We also see how, like McLuhan, he anthropomorphizes the media ("the television is watching you"), a form of technological mysticism (or to be more nasty, mystification) as extreme as McLuhan. Like McLuhan, Baudrillard also globalizes media effects making the media demiurges of a new type of society and new type of experience. Baudrillard also practices McLuhan's method of probes and mosaic constellations of images and concepts which take on an experimental and provisional nature. Consequently, whereas he sets forth theoretically articulated theses about the media in "Requiem," in his studies of simulations and later writings he tends to cluster images, concepts, and descriptive analyses, within which media often play a key role, rather than systematically articulating a well-defined theoretical position, thus adopting a key McLuhanite literary strategy.

Yet we might contrast here McLuhan's ecumenical Catholicism with Baudrillard's somewhat puritanical Protestantism.[8] McLuhan fantasized a new type of global community and even a new universal (media) consciousness and experience through the dissemination of a global media system, the global village. McLuhan also believed that the media could overcome alienation produced by the abstract rationality of book culture which was being replaced by a new synaesthesia and harmonizing of the mind and body, the senses and technologies. Baudrillard by contrast sees the media as external demigods, or idols of the mind -- to continue the Protestant metaphor --, which seduce and fascinate

the subject and which enter subjectivity to produce a reified consciousness and priva tized and fragmented life-style (Sartre's seriality). Thus while McLuhan ascribes a generally benign social destiny to the media, for Baudrillard the function of TV and mass media is to prevent response, to isolate and privatize individuals, and to trap them into a universe of simulacra where it is impossible to distinguish between the spectacle and the real, and where individuals come to prefer spectacle over "reality" (which both loses interest for the masses and its privileged status in philosophy and social theory).

The mass media are thus instruments for Baudrillard of a "cold seduction" whose narcissistic charm consists of a manipulative self-seduction in which we enjoy the play of lights, shadows, dots, and events in our own mind as we change channels or media and plug into the variety of networks -- media, computer, information -- that surround us and that allow us to become modulators and controllers of an overwhelming panoply of sights, sounds, information, and events. In this sense, media have a chilling effect (which is why Baudrillard allows McLuhan's "cool" to become downright "cold") which freeze individuals into functioning as terminals of media and communication networks who become involved as part and parcel of the very apparatus of communication. The subject, then, becomes transformed into an object as part of a nexus of information and communication networks.

The interiorization of media transmissions within the screen of our mind obliterates, he claims, the distinction between public and private, interior and exterior space -- both of which are replaced by media space. Here Baudrillard inverts McLuhan's thesis concerning the media as extensions of the human, as exteriorizations of human powers, and argues instead that humans internalize media and thus becomes terminals within media systems -- a new theoretical anti-humanism that might amuse Louis Althusser. The eye and the brain, on this model, replaces both the other sense organs and the hand as key instruments of human practice, as information processing replaces human practice and techne and poesis alike.[9]

In "The Ecstasy of Communication" Baudrillard describes the media as instruments of obscenity, transparency, and ecstasy -- in special sense of these terms.[10] He claims that in the postmodern mediascape, the domestic scene -- or the private sphere per se -- with its rules, rituals, and privacy is exteriorized, or made explicit and transparent, "in a sort of obscenity where the most intimate processes of our life become the virtual feeding ground of the media (the Loud family in the United States, the innumerable slices of peasant or patriarchal life on French television). Inversely, the entire universe comes to unfold arbitrarily on your domestic screen (all the useless information that comes to you from the entire world, like a microscopic pornography of the universe, useless, excessive, just like the sexual close-up in a porno film): all this explodes the scene formerly preserved by the minimal separation of public and private, the scene that was played out in a restricted space" (p. 130).

In addition, the spectacles of the consumer society and the dramas of the public sphere are also being replaced by media events that replace public life and scenes with a screen that shows us everything instantaneously and without scruple or hesitation: "Obscenity

begins precisely when there is no more spectacle, no more scene, when all becomes transparence and immediate visibility, when everything is exposed to the harsh and inexorable light of information and communication" (p. 130). The ecstasy of communication: everything is explicit, ecstatic (out of or beyond itself), and obscene in its transparency, detail, and visibility: "It is no longer the traditional obscenity of what is hidden, repressed, forbidden or obscure; on the contrary, it is the obscenity of the visible, of the all-too-visible, of the more-visible-than-visible. It is the obscenity of what no longer has any secret, of what dissolves completely in information and communication" (p. 131). One thinks here of such 1987 media obscenity concerning the trials and tribulations of Gary Hart and Donna Rice, of Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart, of Ron and Nancy Reagans' cancer operations and astrology games, or the dirty business deals of his associates, and the dirty political deals of Iran/Contra -- all of which have been exposed to the glaring scrutiny of the media in which what used to be private, hidden, and invisible suddenly becomes (almost) fully explicit and visible.

In the ecstasy of communication everything becomes transparent, and there are no more secrets, scenes, privacy, depth or hidden meaning. Instead a promiscuity of information and communication unfolds in which the media circulate and disseminate a teeming network of cool, seductive and fascinating sights and sounds to be played on one's own screen and terminal. With the disappearence of exciting scenes (in the home, in the public sphere), passion evaporates in personal and social relations, yet a new fascination emerges ("the scene excites us, the obscene fascinates us") with the very universe of media and communication. In this universe we enter a new form of subjectivity where we become saturated with information, images, events, and ecstasies. Without defense or distance, we become "a pure screen, a switching center for all the networks of influence" (p. 133). In the media society, the era of interiority, subjectivity, meaning, privacy, and the inner life is over; a new era of obscenity, fascination, vertigo, instantaneity, transparency and overexposure begins: Welcome to the postmodern world!

In his more recent 1980 writings which I have not examined here -- and which tend to recycle (i.e. simulate) his earlier positions -- Baudrillard continues to call attention to McLuhan as the great media theorist of our epoch and continues to subscribe to the postions that I explicated above, though occasionally he notes that one should even go further than he has so far in denying that the media are producers of meaning, or that media content or apparatus is important.[11]

Three Subordinations

Undoubtedly, the media are playing an ever greater role in our personal and social lives, and have dramatically transformed our economy, polity, and society in ways that we are only now becoming aware of. Living within a great transformation, perhaps as significant as the transformation from feudalism to industrial capitalism, we are engaged in a process of dramatic mutation, which we are barely beginning to understand, as we enter the brave new world of media saturation, computerization, new technologies, and new discourses. Baudrillard's contribution lies in his calling attention to these novelties and transformations and providing new concepts and theories to understand them.

Yet doubts remain as to whether the media are having quite the impact that Baudrillard ascribes to them and whether his theory provides adequate concepts to analyze the complex interactions between media, culture, and society today. In this section, I shall suggest that Baudrillard's media theory is vitiated by three subordinations which undermine its theoretical and political usefulness and which raise questions as well about the status of postmodern social theory. I shall suggest that the limitations in Baudrillard's theory can be related to his uncritical assumption of certain positions within McLuhan's media theory and that therefore earlier critiques of McLuhan can accurately and usefully be applied to Baudrillard. This critique will suggest that indeed Baudrillard is a "new McLuhan" who has repackaged McLuhan into new postmodern cultural capital.

First, in what might be called a formalist subordination, Baudrillard, like McLuhan, privileges the form of media technology over what might be called the media apparatus, and thus subordinates content, meaning, and the use of media to its purely formal structure and effects. Baudrillard -- much more so than McLuhan who at least gives some media history and analysis of the media environment -- tends to abstract media form and effects from the media environment and thus erases political economy, media production, and media environment (i.e. society as large) from his theory. Against abstracting media form and effects from context, I would argue that the use and effects of media should be carefully examined and evaluated in terms of specific contexts. Distinctions between context and use, form and content, media and reality, all dissolve, however, in Baudrillard's one-dimensional theory where global theses and glib pronouncements replace careful analysis and critique.

Baudrillard might retort that it is the media themselves which abstract from the concreteness of everyday, social, and political life and provide abstract simulacra of actual events which themselves become more real than "the real" which they supposedly represent. Yet even if this is so, media analysis should attempt to recontextualize media images and simulacra rather than merely focusing on the surface of media form. Furthermore, instead of operating with a model of (formal) media effects, I would argue that it is preferable to operate with a dialectical perspective which posits multiple roles and functions to television and other media.

Another problem is that Baudrillard's formalism vitates the project of ideology critique, and against his claims that media content are irrelevant and unimportant, I would propose grasping the dialectic of form and content in media communication, seeing how media forms constitute content and how content is always formed or structured, while forms themselves can be ideological, as when the situation comedy form of conflict/resolution projects an ideological vision which shows all problems easily capable of being resolved within the existing society, or when action-adventure series formats of violent conflict as the essence of reality project a conservative view of human life as a battleground where only the fittest survive and prosper.[12] For a dialectical theory of the media, television would have multiple functions (and potential decodings) where sometimes the ideological effects may be predominant while at other times time functions a medium like television functions as mere noise or through the merely formal effects which Baudrillard puts at the center of his analysis.

Consequently, there is no real theory or practice of cultural interpretation in Baudrillard's media (increasingly anti-)theory, which also emanates an anti-hermeneutical bias that denies the importance of content and is against interpretation.[13] This brings us to a second subordination in Baudrillard's theory in which a more dialectical position is subordinated to media essentialism and technological determinism. For -- according to Baudrillard -- it is the technology of, say, television that determines its effects (one-way transmission, semiurgy, implosion, extermination of meaning and the social) rather than any particular content or message (i.e. for both Baudrillard and McLuhan "the media is the message"), or its construction or use within specific social systems. For Baudrillard, media technology and semiurgy are the demiurges of media practices and effects, separated from their uses by specific economic and political interests, individuals and groups, and the social systems within which they function. Baudrillard thus abstracts media from social systems and essentializes media technology as dominant social forces. Yet against Baudrillard, one could argue that capital continues to be a primary determinant of media form and content in neo-capitalist societies just as state socialism helps determine the form, nature, and effects of technologies in certain state socialist societies.

Baudrillard, like McLuhan, often makes essentializing distinctions between media like television or film, ascribing a particular essence to one, and an opposed essence to the other. Yet it seems highly problematical to reduce apparatuses as complex, contradictory, and many-sided as television (or film or any mass medium) to its formal properties and effects, or to a technological essence. It is therefore preferable, for theories of media in the capitalist societies, to see the media as syntheses of technology and capital, as technologies which serve specific interests and which have specific political and economic effects (rather than merely technological ones). It is also preferable to see the dialectic between media and society in specific historical conjunctures, to see how social content, trends, and imperatives help constitute the media which in turn influence social developments and help constitute social reality.

For Baudrillard, by contrast, the media today simply constitute a simulated, hyperreal, and obscene (in his technical sense) world(view), and a dialectic of media and society is shortcircuited in a new version of technological determinism. The political implications of this analysis are that constituting alternative media, or alternative uses or forms of existing media, is useless or worse because media in their very essence for him militate against emancipatory politics or any project of social transformation. Such cynical views, however, primarily benefit conservative interests who presently control the media in their own interests -- a point to which I shall soon return.

Thirdly, there is a subordination of cultural interpretation and politics in Baudrillard to what might very loosely be called "theory" -- thus constituting a theoricist subordination in Baudrillard. In other words, just as Louis Althusser subordinated concrete empirical and historical analysis to what he called "theoretical practice" -- and thus was criticized for "theoreticism," -- Baudrillard also rarely engages in close analysis or readings of media texts, and instead simply engages in rather abstract theoretical ruminations. Here, his arm-chair or TV screen theorizing might be compared with Foucault's archival

theorizing, or to more detailed and systematic media theory and critique, much to, I'm afraid, Baudrillard's detriment.

Baudrillard also rigorously avoids the messy but important terrain of cultural and media politics. There is nothing concerning alternative media practices, for instance, in his theorizing, which he seems to rule out in advance because on his view all media are mere producers of noise, non-communication, the extermination of meaning, implosion, and so on. In "Requiem for the Media," Baudrillard explicitly argues that all mass media communication falls prey to "mass mediatization," that is "the imposition of models": "In fact, the essential Medium is the Model. What is mediatized is not what comes off the daily press, out of the tube, or on the radio: it is what is reinterpreted by the sign form, articulated into models, and administered by the code (just as the commodity is not what is produced industrially, but what is mediatized by the exchange value system of abstraction)" (CPES, pp. 175-176).

All "subversive communication," then, for Baudrillard has to surpass the codes and models of media communication -- and thus of the mass media themselves which invariably translate all contents and messages into their codes. Consequently, not only general elections but general strikes have "become a schematic reducing agent" (CPES, p. 176). In this (original) situation: "The real revolutionary media during May {1968} were the walls and their speech, the silk-screen posters and the hand-painted notices, the street where speech began and was exchanged -everything that was an immediate inscription, given and returned, spoken and answered, mobile in the same space and time, reciprocal and antagonistic. The street is, in this sense, the alternative and subversive form of the mass media, since it isn't, like the latter, an objectified support for answerless messages, a transmission system at a distance. It is the frayed space of the symbolic exchange of speech -- ephemeral, mortal: a speech that is not reflected on the Platonic screen of the media. Institutionalized by reproduction, reduced to a spectacle, this speech is expiring" (CPES, pp. 176-177).

In this text, Baudrillard conflates all previously revolutionary strategies and models of "subversive communication" to "schematic reducing agents" and manifests here once again a nostalgia for direct, unmediated, and reciprocal speech ("symbolic exchange") which is denied in the media society. Haunted by a disappearing metaphysics of presence, Baudrillard valorizes immediate communication over mediated communication thus forgetting that all communication is mediated (through language, through signs, through codes, etc.). Furthermore, he romanticizes a certain form of communication (speech in the streets) as the only genuinely subversive or revolutionary communication and media. Consistently with this theory, he thus calls for a (neo-Luddite) "deconstruction" of the media "as systems of non-communication," and thus for the "liquidation of the existing functional and technical structure of the media" (CPES, p. 177).

Against Baudrillard's utopia of immediate speech -- which he himself abandons in his 1980s writings--, I would defend the project of structural and technical refunctioning of the media as suggested earlier by Brecht, Benjamin, and Enzensberger. Baudrillard, by contrast, not only attacks all form of media communication as non-revolutionary, but

eventually, by the late 1970s, he surrenders his commitment to revolutionary theory and drops the notion of revolutionary communication or subversive cultural practices altogether.[14] Moreover, Baudrillard becomes a bit testy and even nasty in his later writing when considering alternative media. In a symptomatic passage in "The Ecstasy of Communication," Baudrillard writes:

the promiscuity {note the moralizing coding here -- D.K.} that reigns over

the communication networks is one of superficial saturation, of an

incessant solicitation, of an extermination of interstitial and protective

spaces. I pick up my telephone receiver and it's all there; the whole

marginal network catches and harasses me with the insupportable good

faith of everything that wants and claims to communicate. Free radio: it

speaks, it sings, it expresses itself. Very well, it is the sympathetic

obscenity of its content. In terms a little different for each medium, this is

the result: a space, that of the FM band, is found to be saturated,... Speech

is free perhaps, but I am less free than before: I no longer succeed in

knowing what I want, the space is so saturated, the pressure so great from

all who want to make themselves heard.

I fall into the negative ecstasy of the radio (pp. 131-132).

Against this snide and glib put-down of alternative media, I would argue that alternative television-radio-film provide the possibility of another type of media with different forms, content, goals, and effects from mainstream media.[15] A radical media project would thus attempt to transform both the form and the content of the media, as well as their organization and social functions. In a socialist society, mass media would be part of a communal public sphere and alternative media would be made accessible to all groups and individuals who wished to participate in media communication. This would presuppose dramatic expansion of media access and thus of media systems which would require more channels, technology, and a social commitment to democratic communication.

To preserve its autonomy, such systems should be state funded but not controlled -- much like television in several European countries.[16] It would also have to function as the better local public access systems now do in the United States in which a certain number of channels are put aside for public use and available to everyone on a non-discriminatory basis. In Austin, Texas, for instance, we now have a multi-channel access system with two channels reserved for city government, one city educational channel for use by the Austin school system, one for regularly scheduled weekly access shows by groups committed to public access television, and two channels open to anyone for any use whatsover (these two channels are currently dominated by religious, musical, and sports programming). So far this system has proved functional, allowing just about any individual or group the opportunity to make and broadcast their own programming and statements.

An alternative media system would thus provide the possibility for oppositional, counterhegemonic subcultures and groups to produce programs expressing their own views, oppositions, and struggles that resist the massification, homogenization, and passivity that Baudrillard and others attribute to the media. Alternative media allow marginal and oppositional voices to contest the view of the world, values, and life-styles of the mainstream, and make possible the circulation and growth of alternative subcultures and communities. Baudrillard's theoreticism, however, completely eschews cultural practice and becomes more and more divorced from the political struggles and issues of the day -- though the question of Baudrillard's politics would take another long and very tortured paper to deal with. Reflecting briefly on Baudrillard's media theory leads me to three provisional conclusions:

1) Postmodern media theory is rather impoverished qua media theory and reproduces the limitations of McLuhan's media theory: formalism, technological determinism, and essentialism. John Fekete's critique of McLuhan might profitably be applied to Baudrillard, as might some of the other criticisms of McLuhan once in fashion which may need to be recycled a second time for the new McLuhan(cy).[17] The theory of autonomous media also return with Baudrillard; thus the critiques of autonomous technology can usefully and relevantly be applied to Baudrillard, and, more generally to postmodern social theory.[18]

2) The very weakness of postmodern media theory raises fundamental questions about the status of postmodern social theory itself. The question arises as to whether an implosive theory -like Baudrillard's -- that denies all the boundaries of previous social theory is in a position to carefully and rigorously work out the complex relations and contradictions between the media, economy, state, culture and society, or whether -- as I believe -- neo-Marxian theories of dialectics and mediations are preferable.

3) So I conclude that more sustained critical focus on Baudrillard's theory of the media (as well as all of his other theories) is necessary -- as opposed to the celebatory adultation which has so far -- at least in some circles -surrounded the emergence of a New Master Discourse. If the Baudrillardian postmodern theory is inadequate, then we need new theories to illuminate the multi-faceted and significant roles of the media in contemporary capitalist societies. No such theory exists -- which is part of the attraction of Baudrillard who at least tries to offer a new media theory adequate to its object -and the production of one is perhaps Baudrillard's real challenge to us.

Notes

1. This polemic draws on material from my forthcoming book _Jean Baudrillard: From Marxism to Postmodernism and Beyond_ (Polity Press, 1989). I am grateful to Arthur Kroker for penetrating critical remarks on an earlier version of this text, to Steve Best for incisive critiques of several versions of the text, and to Peter Bruck who proposed expansion of the political implications of my critique. In this paper, I shall use the following abbreviations in the text for Baudrillard's work: CPES=_Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign_ (St. Louis: Telos Press, 1978); SSM=_In the Shadows of

the Silent Majorities_ (New York: Semiotext(e), 1983); SIM= _Simulations_ (New York: Semiotext(e), 1983); and SED=_De la seduction_ (Paris: Galilee, 1979).

2. Baudrillard presents a rather extreme variant of a negative model of the media which sees mass media and culture simply as instruments of domination, manipulation, and social control in which radical intervention and radical media or cultural politics are impossible. Baudrillard thus shares a certain theoretical terrain on theories of the media with the Frankfurt school, many Althusserians and other French radicals, and those who see electronic media, broadcasting, and mass culture simply as a terrain of domination. For my critique of the Frankfurt school media theory, see _Critical Theory, Marxism, and Modernity_ (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1989).

3. Baudrillard, Review of _Understanding Media_ in _L'Homme et la Societe_, Nr. 5 (1967), pp. 227ff.

4. See Jurgen Habermas, _Theory and Practice_ (Boston: Beacon Press, 1973), and the critique in Rick Roderick, _Habermas and the Foundations of Critical Theory_ (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1986).

5. Hans Magnus Enzensberger, "Constituents of a Theory of the Media," in _The Consciousness Industry_ _New York: Seabury_, 1974.

6. See Marshall McLuhan, _Understanding Media_ (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1984). Scott Lash proposes use of the term "de-differentiation" in "Discourse or Figure? Postmodernism as a 'Regime of Signification,'" _Theory, Culture & Society_, Vol. 5, Nrs. 2-3 (June 1988).

7. Douglas Kellner, "Boundaries and Borderlines: Reflections on Baudrillard and Critical Theory," _Current Perspectives in Social Theory_ (forthcoming 1988).

8. On McLuhan's catholicism, see John Fekete, "McLuhancy: Counterrevolution in Cultural Theory" (Telos 15, Spring 1973), pp. 75 123 and Arthur Kroker, _Technology and the Canadian Mind_ (Montreal: New World Press, 1984).

9. Fekete, ibid, pp. 100ff.

10. Jean Baudrillard, "The Ecstasy of Communication," in Hal Foster, editor, _The Anti-Aesthetic_ (Port Washington, N.Y.: 1983). Page references from this source will be inserted in the text.

11. Kellner, _Jean Baudrillard_, Ibid.

12. For further elaboration, see Douglas Kellner, "TV, Ideology and Emancipatory Popular Culture," _Socialist Review_ 42 (Nov-Dec 1979), pp. 13-53 and "Television Images, Codes, and Messages," _Televisions_, Vol. 7, No. 4 (1980), pp. 2-19.

13. See Steven Best and Douglas Kellner "(Re)Watching Television: Notes Toward a Political Criticism," _Diacritics_ (Summer 1987), pp. 97-113 for elaboration of the project of developing a political hermeneutics against postmodernist (mostly formalist and anti-hermeneutical) modes of criticism.

14. Kellner, _Jean Baudrillard_, Ibid.

15. This argument is elaborated in Douglas Kellner, "Public Access Television:

_Alternative Views_," _Radical Science Journal_ 16, _Making Waves_ (1985), pp. 79-92, and Steve Best and Douglas Kellner, "Watching Television: The Limitations of Post-Modernism," _Science as Culture_ 4 (forthcoming 1988). I point to some of the limitations in Baudrillard's media theory for analysis of contemporary politics in "Baudrillard, Semiurgy and Death" _Theory, Culture & Society_, Vol. IV (1987), pp. 125-146.

16. I shall develop this position in my forthcoming book _Television, Politics and Society: Towards a Critical Theory of Television_ (forthcoming Westview Press).

17. Fekete, Ibid.

18. See Langdon Winner, _Autonomous Technology_ (Cambridge, Mass: The M.I.T. Press, 1977).

鲍德里亚研究综述

鲍德里亚研究综述 国内 鲍德里亚研究的范围十分广泛,各个领域均有涉猎。除了上文提到的哲学、社会学外,甚至在艺术领域他也有所建树。鲍德里亚一生写了很多著作,其中又以《物理系》、《消费社会》等著作为大众所熟知。就目前出版的资料来看,国内对他的研究总体状况是专著少,论文多。研究专著有:仰海峰的《走向后马克思主义:从生产之境到符号之境一早期鲍德里亚思想文本学解读》、伍庆的《消费社会与消费认同》以及夏宝的《消费社会理论及其方法论导读》等。除专著以外更多的还是一些发表于各学术期刊中的一些研究论文,其研究内容也主要集中在鲍德里亚的象征交换、后现代理论等思想方面。总的来说,国内学者们对于鲍德里亚的研究才刚刚起步,有待我们更进一步的研究。 国内哲学界很多学者把对鲍德里亚《物体系》的研究纳入到对其早期思想的研宄中,在研宄鲍德里亚早期思想的过程中阐述对《物体系》的理解。国内学界的一些学者把鲍德里亚的思想分为三个阶段一一早期、中期和晚期,仰海峰在《走向后马克思:从生产之镜到符号之镜:早期鲍德里亚思想的文本学解读》中认为: "鲍德里亚的思想发展大致可以分为三个阶段:第一阶段处于西方马克思主义批判理论的影响之下,并结合符号学与精神分析理论展开对消费社会的枇判分析,……;第二阶段是从西方马克思主义转向后马克思思潮,对马克思的历史唯物主义展开了较为尖锐的批评,……;第三阶段是同一切现有思潮决裂”气但是,也有学者提出不同意见,夏莹认为,"鲍德里亚的早期思想并非终止于1976 年,因为在进入80年代,甚至接近90年代之后的一些著作中,如《诱惑》、《拟像与仿真》都还同样具有批判理论的基本特质,应当说,这些都还应归属于其早期思想” 《物体系》属于鲍德里亚的早期作品,学者对它的研究主要是通过探讨鲍德里亚与马克思主义之间的关系。国内学界对鲍德里亚早期思想是否继承了西方马克思主义的批判传统还存在一定的分歧:支持者认为鲍德里亚的早期思想是在西方马克思主义的批判理论传统之下,代表学者有:仰海峰《走向后马克思:从生产之镜到符号之镜:早期鲍德里亚思想的文本学解读》、夏董《消费社会理论及其方法论导论:基于早期鲍德里亚的一种批判理论建构》、孔明安《物?象征?仿真:鲍德里亚哲学思想研究》、戴阿宝《终结的力量:鲍德里亚前期思想研究》、高亚春《符号与象征一一波德里亚消费社会批判理论研究》等等。反对者认为鲍德里亚从早期开始就己经脱离了西方马克思主义的?;判视域, 代表学者是张一兵。张一兵对鲍德里亚有很多研究?,但从总体上讲,张一兵是一位反鲍德里亚者。他认为鲍德里亚是以海德格尔的存在论以及莫#f ?巴塔耶的象征交换理论来建构自己的思想④,所以得出鲍德里亚对资本主义社会的批判从一开始就脱离了马克思主义。从总体上看,国内学界对鲍德里亚《物体系》的研宄主要有三个视角: 第一,从宏观的角度同时结合马克思主义相关理论对《物体系》进行梳理。仰海峰在《走向后马克思:从生产之镜到符号之镜:早期鲍德里亚思想的文本学解读》中梳理了鲍德里亚早期的著作,围绕物、消费与生产之间的关系,说明当下资本主义是符号编码下的消费社会,最后得出了鲍德里亚对马克思历史唯物主义的批判存在根本性的错误的结论'L。对《物体系》的研宄,仰海峰主要从“物体系的功能变迁”、“物体系时代的动机”以及“物体系的实践意识形态批判”?角度来探讨,目的在于为消费的出场做铺塾;孔明安在《物?象征?仿真:鲍德里亚哲学思想研宄》中梳理了鲍德里亚早期、中期和晚期的思想,围绕“物、消费、生产、象征、仿真、内爆和超真实”展开。同时还探讨了鲍德里亚的传媒、女权等等思想,得出其早期的思想受到了西方马克思主义的影响,而“象征交换”原则贯穿了其社会批判的始终?。 第二,从消费的视角来研宄鲍德里亚。夏莹在《消费社会理论及其方法论导论:基于早期鲍德里亚的一种批判理论建构》中以“异化”的方法来批判的解读鲍德里亚的消费思想、文中围绕鲍德里亚的消费展幵论述。在夏莹看来批判的精神是鲍德里亚的核心精神,鲍德里亚把马

文明的挽歌_鲍德里亚_象征交换与死亡_的解析

第48卷 第2期吉林大学社会科学学报V o.l48 N o.2 2008年3月Jili n U n i versity Journa l Soc i a l Sc iences Ed iti on M ar.,2008 当代西方哲学研究:鲍德里亚专题 文明的挽歌 鲍德里亚!象征交换与死亡?的解析 孔明安 [摘要]法国社会学家和哲学家鲍德里亚向来以思想独特和怪异而著称。在!象征交换与死亡? 一书中,鲍德里亚通过对死亡的原始象征意义的回溯考证和注解,从中引申出象征交换概念的特 征,并运用这一特征来分析现代西方近代社会以来的人道主义思潮及其特点,得出了与西方人道主 义为主流的西方文明背道而驰的#死亡观?,从而在20世纪之末奏出了与西方当代文明社会极不 协调的一曲#文明的挽歌?。 [关键词]鲍德里亚;象征交换;死亡;互惠性;人道主义 [收稿日期]2007-12-20 [作者简介]孔明安,中国社会科学院哲学研究所副研究员(北京 100732)。 #象征交换?是法国著名社会学家和哲学家鲍德里亚(J B audrillard)的一个核心概念;!象征交换与死亡?则是鲍德里亚的一部重要的哲学和社会学著作。鲍德里亚著作甚多,但相比较而言,尤以!象征交换与死亡?的哲学色彩和理论性最强,但也最为难以理解和把握。在该书中,鲍德里亚提出了著名的#象征交换?理论,并运用这一理论对现代文明社会进行了全面性的考察批判。不仅如此,从象征交换这一概念提出之后,鲍德里亚始终将象征交换原则作为一个普遍性的原则,用以诠释和注解现代文明社会,特别是西方资本主义社会的各种现象。因而,我们可以说,象征交换的礼仪或规则,贯穿了鲍德里亚中后期的思想。如果说在鲍德里亚前期的!物体系?、!消费社会?和!符号政治经济学批判?中,象征交换的思想还不明显的话,那么,从!生产之境?开始,特别是其!象征交换与死亡?一书的出版,象征交换理论就构成之后鲍德里亚思想的核心。这不仅包括鲍德里亚在!象征交换与死亡?一书中对象征交换理论的反复细致的阐述和论证,而且之后的大众媒体批判理论,诱惑理论,以及后期有关科技哲学的思想中,都隐含着象征交换理论的影子。特别鲍德里亚晚年整理出版的!不可能的交换?一书,也是他对其象征交换理论在新千年的应用性的阐释和论证。当然,过多的论述显然是本文不能企及的,我们在此只是强调象征交换理论在鲍德里亚思想中的重要性地位而已。 但令人遗憾的是,鲍德里亚所提出的象征交换理论及其对现代社会想象的解释,给出的并不是一个令人鼓舞的论调。正如英国学者M 甘恩(M G ane)将鲍德里亚的文化观解读为#鲍德里亚的兽性?一样,通过对!象征交换与死亡?的研读,我们看到的是,鲍德里亚的!象征交换与死亡?奏出的是一曲文明社会的哀叹调。下面,我们试图从象征的概念及其特征,象征交换与死亡的关系,以及象征交换与文明社会的关系等角度来对鲍德里亚的思想做一探讨。

鲍德里亚消费社会批判理论评析

鲍德里亚消费社会批判理论评析 [摘要]法国著名哲学家鲍德里亚从物-符号消费-符号价值等概念，构建起一个完整的符号价值体系，并探索这一体系和经典政治经济学的价值体系之间的联系，试想通过对符号拜物教的批判来摒除消费异化。他在揭露资本在消费领域运行的固有本性的同时，也存在着对经典政治经济学理论的曲解。我们只有正确认识并妥善处理好消费和生产之间互动互促的关系，树立科学的消费观，摆脱符号化消费和异化消费的困扰，以实现人的全面而自由发展为追求，在全社会建立合理消费、适度消度的新常态，才能促进社会协调、和谐、可持续发展和全面进步。 [关键词]鲍德里亚；消费社会批判理论；物；符号消费；科学消费 鲍德里亚的消费社会研究根植于20世纪西方社会文化转型的时代背景中。他继承了西方悠久的人文批判精神，抓住了时代发展的脉搏。在二十世纪七十年代，他提出的消费社会理论深刻地揭示了当代西方社会的本质特征和发展趋势。重新审视这一理论，一方面有助于我们把握后现代思潮的特点，另一方面也可为时下消费文化实践中所存在的复杂的意识形态控制与反控制提供了新的视角，对理解西方和我国的社会领域中出现的诸多新现象具有重要的理论和现实意义。 一、消费批判理论的内涵 （一）消费批判理论的出发点和落脚点：物 在受到马克思对商品分析的影响，鲍德里亚选择了物作为他的研究突破口。但这个所谓的物既延续了传统马克思主义的拜物教批判，又受到了导师列斐伏尔日常生活理论的直接影响。鲍德.里亚的逻辑思维首先从日常生活中最为普遍、常见的物开始，并将人类制造的繁多物品进行分类和分析，并由繁多的物所组成的这个系统，作论著《物体系》来研究。并将差异的物，即所谓的个性化的物，通过命名和指称的方式加以区别。在消费社会中，由于物的功能性不断扩大，物也就变成了一个纯粹的事物，并且指出：掌握它的人可以根据掌握者的意志任意的确定物的意义。也就是说，每种物都有特定的意义指向，“A物—A意义”。这时，物的自主性很低。但是，人的消费的目的不仅仅是消费物的使用价值本身，更重要的在于物所涉及的关系和隐藏在其背后的重要意义。

符号消费构建消费文化浅论鲍德里亚的符号批判理论

２００６年第２期（总第１８１期） 学术论坛 ＡＣＡＤＥＭＩＣＦＯＲＵＭ ＮＯ．２．２００６ （ＣｕｍｕｌａｔｉｖｅｌｙＮＯ．１８１） 符号消费构建消费文化 ——浅论鲍德里亚的符号批判理论 梅琼林 （武汉大学｛毛介发展研究中心，湖北武汉４３００７２） ［摘要］作为西方批判学派的主要人物，鲍德里亚对现代消费社会进行了研究，并逐渐开始偏离马克思主义的方法，发展出自己的一套消费社会的理论。他从物的消费进入符号消费的领域，建立了以符号消费为主导的符号政治经济学体系，并从人们对“物”的消费行为中，看到物或商品对人的本性的支配与异化，看到了实际蕴涵的更深层的“符号”消费。文章分析鲍德里亚的理论转变，从而探求他的符号消费构建的消费文化的本质。 ［关键词］鲍德里亚；符号消费；符号价值；消费文化；品牌 ［中图分类号】Ｇ１１２［文献标识码］Ａ［文章编号】１００４—４４３４（２００６）０２—０１８１—０４ 第二次世界大战之后的法国学术思想界经历了一个急剧变革的过程。尤其是进入２０世纪６０年代之后，现代化和高科技的发展，高速公路、高楼大厦、购物中心以及电影、电视和报纸等大众传媒在法国的迅速出现，标志着法国已经进入了一个新的消费社会。消费社会的新特征正在深刻地改变法国人的日常生活，急剧推动着社会变化，催成新型的社会秩序的形成。许多法国理论家把这种新型的社会转型称之为“消费社会”、“技术社会”、“后工业社会”或“后现代社会”等等。在这场急剧变革的思想运动中，鲍德里亚开始关注和研究新的消费社会的特征。他从马克思主义和西方马克思主义对商品和物的研究开始，逐渐进入对现代消费社会的研究，并逐渐开始偏离马克思主义的方法，发展出自己的一套消费社会的理论。他从物的消费进入符号消费的领域，建立了以符号消费为主导的符号政治经济学体系，并从人们对“物”的消费行为中，看到物或商品对人的本性的支配与异化，看到深层的“符号”消费。 一、从物的消费到符号消费 １９６８年出版的《物体系》是鲍德里亚的学术生涯的第一部著作，从此他“对消费社会中客体、符号以及符码提出了一系列激动人心的分析”［１Ｊ（Ｐ１㈣。鲍德里亚深受当时浓厚的后结构主义和结构主义理论的影响。《物体系》的目标就是要建构一个日常消费活动中的异化批判，中心是为了导出“物”向符号的转变。这里的“物”主要指的是与商品有关的、在＾们的日常生活中和人经常打交道、和人发生生活关系的物品，如汽车、冰箱、洗衣机、电视和家具等等。 虽然，鲍德里亚提到的“物”与传统的马克思主义经常谈到的、对人产生支配并造成了人的异化等意义上的“物”或商品没有太大区别，但不同的是，鲍德里亚对符号理论的运用是从新的角度去认识消费主义的特征。他认为，在消费体制的引导下，人们对物品的符号性追求已经远远地超过了对物品本身的功能性需求，传统的马克思主义生产和经 ［收稿日期］２００６—０１—０３ ［作者简介】梅琼林（１９６卜），男，湖北武汉人，武汉大学媒介发展研究中心研究员，博士生导师，国务院学科评论组成员，研究方向：传播学。

鲍德里亚有关消费社会的分析

鲍德里亚有关消费社会的分析 /h1 鲍德里亚在对西方消费社会的分析中以独特的符号学视角,赢得了广泛的赞誉,被誉为“后现代主义的牧师”.从时代背景来看,鲍德里亚选择消费作为分析的基点与20 世纪60 年代西方社会的总体发展状况相关。从现实状况来看,鲍德里亚关于消费社会的分析对于今天我们矫正奢侈的消费观念和媚俗文化的袭扰仍有一定的借鉴意义。 一、“消费社会”概念的提出 “消费社会”作为一个概念,首先有其深厚的理论渊源。早在鲍德里亚以前,就有一些理论家提出了相关论述。如鲍德里亚的导师列斐伏尔提出了“被消费控制的官僚社会”理论,认为随着资本主义的发展,生产的意识形态和创造性行为的意义已经变成了消费意识形态; 与鲍德里亚同时期的理论家里斯曼认为,资本主义正在经历“由生产时代向消费时代过渡”的革命; 布尔加雷斯认为,我们处于一个“丰裕社会”中; 对鲍德里亚影响颇深的德波从更深层面上认为消费创造了一个“景观无线积累的社会”.这些理论家从不同角度对于同一个社会形态的论述均对鲍德里亚产生了深远的影响。 同时,“消费社会”概念的提出与资本主义社会本身的发展变化有很大关系。消费在生产体系中地位的转变经历了一个很长的阶段。工业社会初期,由于生产力低下,“稀缺性”制约着整个社会的发展。这时消费作为一种消耗受到传统重商主义的抑制。19 世纪随着生产力的

发展,产品的稀缺状况逐步得到改变,同时科技的进步及成果转化导致了产品的相对过剩。这样生产者的过剩与产品过剩导致的间歇性的经济危机使得消费逐渐进入人们的视野。对此,西斯蒙第在《政治经济学新原理》中第一次提出了生产与消费平衡发展的重要性。此时消费作为一种有意义的消耗而存在。20 世纪初,大规模、标准化生产的福特主义的兴起使得商品生产速度得以大幅度提升。这种生产线的大量产出要求快节奏的消费。由此,消费不再是一种消耗,而变成了生产体系中非常重要的一个环节。20 世纪60 年代西方社会开始进入后福特主义时代,也就是丹尼尔·贝尔所谓的后工业社会,此时服务业作为一种小规模、灵活性的产业模式大量兴起。服务业对固定资本的要求显着降低,对人力、智力的要求大大增加,这就使得生产者的过剩得到扭转,生产者的收入也有了一定提高。同时服务业又是一种快速生产和快速消费的产业,甚至,很多时候生产与消费是同时进行的,根据消费的需求来进行生产。所以消费的作用就超过了生产,真正成为“作为生产的消费”.由此,消费在生产体系中的主导型地位确立。 基于上述原因,鲍德里亚提出,当今资本主义“生产的东西,并不是根据其使用价值或可能的使用时间而存在,而是恰恰相反---根据其死亡”29.商品的死亡就意味着商品在消费的过程中被否定,也就是新的消费需求的出现,新的欲望的形成。而资本主义社会的生产从根本上依赖这种消费需求的不断产生,所以,鲍德里亚指出,在当今的西方资本主义社会里,“生产主人公的传奇已到处让位给消费主人公”,“消费本身构成了生产体系的替代性体系,消费在今天已经成为主导性逻辑”.即消费不仅主动地作用于生产,而且成为一个体系并结构性发挥作用。他认为这就意味着消费社会的到来。 与卡恩、鲍曼等相对客观的描述不同,鲍德里亚对消费社会的具体表述受到了法兰克福

消费社会理论 鲍德里亚

消费社会理论（鲍德里亚） 一、形成条件 社会历史条件 二战后，西方资本主义国家着力进行经济社会的复苏，在社会结构上出现了一些新的社会阶层，在所有制形式上，合作制经济开始大量出现，股份制经济和跨国公司也不断涌现。同时，在这一时期无产阶级的科学文化水平得到了提升，中产阶级也逐步增多，他们的社会地位和消费水平不断增强，服务行业日益兴盛。经济的迅猛发展，科学技术的不断进步，使得西方资本主义社会的生产力不断的得到提升，商品数量不断增多，种类齐全，出现了物的极大丰富甚至过剩。 思想渊源 鲍德里亚的消费社会思想深受马克思的影响。马克思的《<政治经济学批判>导言》中，对生产与消费的关系进行了详尽的描述。他指出：“不仅消费的对象，而且消费的方式，不仅客体方面，而且在主体方面都是生产生产的，所以生产创造消费者”。马克思认为在资本主义社会，消费是隶属于生产的，是存在于整个生产系统的。鲍德里亚认为，在早期的资本主义社会，马克思的生产消费理论是适用的而且是正确的，但是到了物质相对丰富的当代西方资本主义社会，消费就不再是一个被动的隶属过程，而是一个主动积极的建立人际关系的模式。这种关系体现了人与物、人与集体和世界的关系，人们消费的也不再仅仅是物品，而是人与物之间的一种结构关系。鲍德里亚还受到罗兰·巴尔特的符号学理论和亨利·勒斐伏尔的日常生活批判理论的影响。巴尔特突破索绪尔的理论，给符号重新赋予了社会内涵，他认为，当今的资本主义社会，资产阶级正在对流行体系的社会进行着意识形态的控制，进而销售这些商品。勒斐伏尔是鲍德里亚的导师，他在《现代世界的日常生活》中揭露出，在日常生活的消费中，社会的消费不是以消费品的实际意义进行的，而是在社会关系的交往下逐渐形成的，物的消费演变成了符号的消费。与此同时，他指出消费实则是异化了，消费社会中的主体和客体发生着改变，物的存在变成了人们的需要，人们也为了追逐社会地位和名誉，

2010―2014：鲍德里亚理论研究综述

2010―2014：鲍德里亚理论研究综述 摘要： 让?鲍德里亚，法国哲学家、社会学家、后现代理论家，被认为是法国旗帜最为鲜明、著作最为晦涩、创造力最为丰富的后现代理论家。鲍德里亚的理论90年代中期传入中国，对他理论的研究，在国内刚刚起步。2010至2014年有许多篇关于鲍德里亚理论的文章被发表，其中有4441篇在知网上能被检索到，就通过从这4441篇文章入手对近三年鲍德里亚的理论研究成果做一简要总结。 关键词：鲍德里亚理论研究；综述 一、鲍德里亚理论产生的时代背景 二战的结束后，西方世界进入了一个高速发展的黄金时期，信息技术、生物技术、网络电脑技术的突破性发展，使人们进入一个全新的时代。与此同时，在思想理论界，解构主义等新的思潮深深触动了各国学者，进而引发了思想理论界的地震。1968年法国发生了“五月革命”它促使一大批战后法国学者放弃了对政治、意识形态的直接关注，转而对现代科学技术和社会影响进行深入的反思。很多思想家撰文论析了工业时代的终结和一个新的后工业时代的到来，指出知识与信息成为社会的新的组织原则。福特主义的大规模生产与消费模式已被一种新型的全球化的和更为灵活的生产

所替代。 二、关于鲍德里亚其人 让?鲍德里亚，法国哲学家、社会学家、后现代理论家，鲍德里亚生于1929年，他在巴黎获得了社会学博士学位，曾任教于巴黎十大和巴黎九大，从1968年出版《物体系》开始，撰写了一系列分析当代社会文化现象、批判当代资本主义的著作，并最终成为享誉世界的法国知识分子。 三、鲍德里亚的主要理论 学界普遍认为鲍德里亚的理论分为三个阶段即：第一阶段处于西方马克思主义批判理论的影响下，并结合符号学与精神分析理论对消费社会的批判分析。主要作品有《物体系》、《消费社会》和《符号政治经济学批判》。这一阶段也被称为鲍德里亚的现代理论时期；第二阶段由西方马克思主义转变到后马克思思潮。这段时间他也被人称为其社会思想成型时期。在这一阶段，他对马克思的历史唯物主义展开了较为尖锐的批评，成为后现代的理论先驱。代表作有《生产之镜》、《象征交换与死亡》等；第三阶段，他同一切现有的思潮决裂，最后同现实本身决裂，走向了主张物体支配一切的阶段。代表作有《诱惑》、《宿命策略》、《冷酷的记忆》等。 四、鲍德里亚理论研究综述 通看这4441篇文章我发现研究者对鲍德里亚的研究主要集中在以下几个方面：首先，研究者关注鲍德里亚对经

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符号消费

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鲍德里亚理论解析

第五章仿真、超真实、内爆 ----鲍德里亚的传播理论与思想 一、鲍德里亚传播思想概述 鲍德里亚的理论定位： 后现代主义思想家：他试图从历史和批判两方面来运动符号学；在研究方法上，采用了符号学、心理分析和差异社会学等研究范式；他摒弃了意识形态等诸多社会因素，把传媒技术和人的最终迷失和堕落作为一对因果关系，因此被成为第一位反思型文化的思想家，为人们冷静地、理性地、重新审视新型文化提供了一条路线，但同时过分强调媒介的作用又使他极易落入课题主义的陷阱中，成为悲观的媒介技术论者。 他的理论充满了对同一体系、总体化的拒斥，崇尚差异性，强调瞬间感的话语。他的叙事体系缺少严密的理论论证、常常流于空洞的说教，而且行文时思想跳跃性强，文字怪诞；另外，对符号现象的分析室鲍德里亚的理论基点，符号结构体系支配着现实世界，拟像、仿真是符号结构支配的形式和手段，在后期，鲍德里亚甚至把符号结构用“全能符码”这一抽象概念描述。鲍德里亚的这种做法是以一种总体性去取代另一种总体性，理论上的悖论存在于他所信奉的那种反总体化观念中。 鲍德里亚理论的历史谱系： 早期的鲍德里亚著作《物体系》和《消费社会》的灵感来自其老师亨利·列菲弗尓对日常生活的批判形成的可能性命题和罗兰·巴特的符号学。这使他处于后结构主义和西方马克思主义的思想网络中。这种网络形成的主要原因：20世纪60年代西方理论界在哲学、社会学方面发生的“语言学转向”。 鲍德里亚对巴特的借鉴集中于巴特关于物的符号意义的分析。 巴特修正了符号理论： ⑴从使用的目的性来定义物品，确定了物品的物质性；但一个物品时它的“功能”（本

义）和“剩余物”（它的引申义）的结合； ⑵要组成物品符号体系，要克服两个障碍： Ⅰ“自明性”难题----物品的物质性妨碍了在符号层次上区别物品的能指和所指。 巴特认为，“形式/主体”的区分是符号学的特殊用法，它帮助我们把所处理系统中实体的使用目的转移到一种符号系统中。从“功能/符号”中可以看到社 会无情的把使用的客体变成符号的过程； Ⅱ对物品的意义存在多种解读。 巴特建议，同一个物品的意义可以分出不少层次，我们可以在这些意义上，观察到符码化，并且可以构造一套类型学。 鲍德里亚采纳了这种策略，物品的功能性的追求不再满足于人的物质需要，它更着重的是物品的文化功能或符号意义上的满足功能，即“风格化”。 ③符号批判的马克思主义源流 ⑴日常生活和亨利·列菲弗尓（Henvi Lefebvre） Ⅰ“日常批判”：通过创造一种关于日产生活中异化的现象学，通过对这些异化形式（如家庭、两性关系、劳动场所、文化活动、口头和其他的交往形式，社会的相互 作用制度以及意识形态中的异化形式）作精致、丰富的描述来进行批判。----鲍德里 亚的早期著作延续了列菲弗尓日常生活的批判思想； Ⅱ“符号消费”：列菲弗尓在想象投射层面上提出。----为鲍德里亚定下了理论走向的大纲，且鲍德里亚更大胆的全面介入符号学分析。 Ⅲ“不在场无罪证明”：当代社会不是一个完整合一的体系，而是分裂为许多“次体系”，并且一个体系可以为另一个体系作掩护，证明其不在场无罪的状态。如精英 文化和大众文化互为无罪证明。 “模拟程序”：互相给予对方合法性这种逻辑的补偿方式。 在思考这种相关逻辑时，应持反向辩证法（即过度的正面性反而是负面性的征兆）。这种反向辩证法谈的是对失去之物的代替。当参考指涉消失时，前来占据这 个空位的后设语言，就像媒体信息的大量传播取代了意义的零程度状态。----鲍德里 亚把符号消费的主要对象圈定为电视、电脑网络等现代化电子媒体，它们创造的符 号仿真社会取代了意义的缺席。 Ⅳ列菲弗尓作出语言：必须在理性批判（黑格尔和马克思）和神话及语言的价值建立（尼采）之间做出选择。----鲍德里亚选择了标志着尼采式的虚无主义道路，这也是 他作为后现代主义者所能走到的终点。 ⑵阿尔都塞和德博特、 二、鲍德里亚的符号批判理论 消费社会与物体/符号体系 鲍德里亚在《物体系》和《消费社会》两本著作中对当今消费社会进行了狂翻的马克思主义批判，对商品的区域性分析是其符号批判理论的思考起点。 消费社会：

鲍德里亚《消费社会》读书笔记

鲍德里亚《消费社会》读书笔记 作为一个纯粹的理科生来说，从高二文理分科以后就很少接触这些很理论的研究，读这本书确实是有点费力的。这应该只能说是试读，不求完全了解鲍德里亚对消费社会深刻的剖析，但求能从这些深刻的文字中得到一些启示。我想仅仅只是感受大师的魅力，努力靠近大师的思想也是很好的一件事。 一开始简单翻看了这本书，书如其名，主要都是鲍德里亚的消费社会理论。书中很多名词概念都不清楚，看着着实是有点头疼的。我又去网上查了一些对这本书的介绍和评价，想尽快得了解这本书的重点。“这部专著围绕消费这个中心对包括美国在内的西方社会进行了详尽而深刻的剖析，向人们揭示了大型技术统治集团是如何引起不可遏制的消费欲望，并在此基础上对阶级社会里的各个阶层重新进行了划分。内容包括物的形式礼拜仪式，消费理论，大众传媒文化等。”这是豆瓣上对这本书的简介，这让我对这本书的内容也有了一定的认知，不然可能看完了都不知道这本书到底在表达什么。下面还有很多有意思的书评，读了他们对这本书的评价，我建立了一点把这本书读下去的信心。 下面简单说说一些我有点理解的东西。 书中讲了一个概念：整个消费社会对消费者的异化。消费者通过消费创造了整个消费社会，却最终陷入在消费社会的影响下成为社会控制的木偶。是一种“再循环”。 鲍德里亚认为在消费社会中最根本的变化是“富裕的人们不再像过去那样受到人的包围，而是受到物的包围”，这里，所谓“物对人的包围”是指包围消费者的商品是以整体的面目出现的，这样，我们能理解当今的消费者在买进某个产品的同时，必须连带购进与之匹配的一系列产品，这不是为了实用，而是为了意义的齐备，为了意义的完整。消费者会由于喜欢某一类产品而扩大到所有同类产品，商家正是利用这种特性向消费者进行个性化推荐，科技的发展更是助长了这种现象的出现。当你在某宝上买过一件衣服，下次打开会发现出现的全部都是同款类型风格的衣服，甚至同类型的包，配饰，买过一支笔，下次处出来的就是类似的本子等等。 书中对商品的象征也有了很好的解释，“消费主义的目的不是为了实际需要的满足，而是在不断追求被制造出来、被刺激起来的欲望的满足；人们所消费的，不是商品和服务的使用价值，而更多是它们的符号象征意义”。鲍德里亚认为，符号象征价值衍生出品牌崇拜，若商品有了品牌，那么商品就会产生附加价值，即商品就被赋予了符号意义，某种程度上一个人的消费方式体

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鲍德里亚的消费社会理论探要 张红岭 (复旦大学哲学学院,上海　200433) [收稿日期]2008-02-29 [作者简介]张红岭(1978-),男,山东禹城人,复旦大学哲学学院博士研究生。 [摘要]　被誉为当代最重要和最具煽动性的精神创造者的鲍德里亚是近年来西方学界热烈讨论的重要 思想家之一。鲍德里亚的消费社会理论揭示了消费社会中的消费异化所具有的符号特征以及在西方发达的消费社会中消费异化所内在包含的唯心逻辑和强制性格。 [关键词]　鲍德里亚　消费社会　消费　符号　消费异化 [中图分类号]　B565.59　[文献标识码]　A [文章编号]　1004-6917(2008)07-0038-04 鲍德里亚是法国当代著名的社会理论家,他的理论涉及领域广泛,论点新锐,是当代欧美理论界、舆论界影响巨大的公共思想家。鲍德里亚综合了20世纪的诸多理论成果,同时又将这些理论成果融于一体,深刻地影响了西方的知识界和思想界。因为理论影响的广泛而巨大,鲍德里亚被誉为后现代主义思潮的开创者和引路人。鲍德里亚对整个现代社会的分析,是建立在“当代社会是消费社会”这一基本判定之上的,因而他的整个社会理论和哲学理论的基础是消费社会理论。本文拟考察鲍德里亚的“消费”概念和消费异化观点,以此解析鲍德里亚消费社会理论的要义。 一、消费社会的特征:符号 “我们处在‘消费’控制着整个生活的境地”[1] , 而且,“至少在西方,生产主人公的传奇现在已到处 让位于消费主人公”[2],由此,整个社会已经由“匮乏 的生产社会”[3]转变为“丰盛的消费社会”[4] 。“消费 社会”是鲍德里亚对当代西方发达国家社会状况的基本判断,也是他在著作《消费社会》和《物体系》中所着力分析的主题。鲍德里亚的“消费”概念主要有以下两点内容。 (一)消费:从功能性到非功能性,从客观论述到 主观论述 从原来的“生产社会”转变为现在“消费社会”,从原来的“匮乏社会”转变为现在的“丰盛社会”,是鲍德里亚对西方资本主义社会状况的一个基本把握。在原来匮乏的生产社会中,消费从属于生产,生产决定消费的种类与形式;产品的消费具有实物性、功能性和使用性的特征。也就是说,在生产社会中,消费的对象是具有一定功能和有用性的商品。这种被消费的商品的价值,是依据生产这种商品的社会劳动来确定的,也就是说,其交换价值是以商品的使用价值为基础,依据商品中包含的社会劳动的价值量来确定的。在鲍德里亚看来,以生产为主导的匮乏社会的消费的特征就是:消费的对象是具有使用价值的、具有一定功能的商品,其价值主要由社会劳 动量决定,遵循劳动价值的客观性。因此,功能性和 客观论述(劳动价值的客观性)就构成了以生产为主导的匮乏社会的消费特征。 然而,随着物质财富的增加,“丰盛社会”的来临,原有的消费特征发生了根本的变化,原来的“日 常消费品的社会地位愈来愈低”[5] ,人们的消费从物 质性、实用性和功能性中解放出来,消费所关注的焦点已经不是消费品的使用价值,而是它所指称的符号意义和突出的个性特征。例如,几乎同样质料的 2008年第7期(总第157期) 广西社会科学 GUAN GXI SHEHU I KEXU E NO.7,2008(Cumulatively ,NO.157)

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鲍德里亚的身体理论研究 刘世波 （首都师范大学，北京 100089） 摘要：鲍德里亚认为，在整个消费社会中，身体是最美的消费品，作为救赎物品的它，在心理和意识形态功能中彻底取代了灵魂。身体作为有待开发的“处女地”，人们必须把它当做一种遗产来照顾，在这一过程中，身体和物品构成了一个同质符号网，它和其他功用性无性物品是同质的。同时，身体崇拜进一步取代了灵魂崇拜，成为了一种更具功用性的当代意识形态。女性解放、医学崇拜等一切关于解放和实现的神话，从一开始就唯“资本主义”目的马首是瞻，其依据只能是一种娱乐及享乐主义效益的标准化原则。所以，归根结底，身体作为经济支柱、作为个体的指导性心理一体化原则、作为社会控制的政治策略，其命运只能是紧密地渗透于生产目的之中。 关键词：同质化；意识形态神话；现象学分析 在《消费社会》一书中，鲍德里亚通过对消费社会丰盛景观的详尽描述，对消费理论的深入剖析和反思，明确指出处在现代资本主义消费社会中人们的奴性境地。人们无时无刻不被引导、被塑型、被区分、被编码、被支配和奴役，无时无刻不处在消费意识形态的统治之下。然而，在本书即将接近尾声之际，鲍德里亚笔锋一转，将关注的焦点转向了身体。在笔者看来，鲍德里亚之所以如此关注身体理论，不仅在于鲍德里亚认为身体是最美的消费品，“它比负载了全部内涵的汽车还要负载了更沉重的内涵，”[1](P120)更重要的是，通过对作为消费品的身体的分析，更能突显作为主体的人们，在现代消费的资本逻辑面前是多么的苍白、脆弱与无奈。 一、同质化、外延化与功用化 处在消费社会的人们，无时无刻地不被提醒，“我们只有一个身体，必须对它进行救赎”,[1](P121)我们要打破传统的束缚，对我们的身体进行“重新发现”与

【鲍德里亚-研究】《鲍德里亚——一个新的麦克卢汉》(英文)

Baudrillard: A New McLuhan? By Douglas Kellner During the 1980s, Jean Baudrillard has been promoted in certain circles as the new McLuhan, as the most advanced theorist of the media and society in the so-called postmodern era.[1] His theory of a new, postmodern society rests on a key assumption that the media, simulations, and what he calls "cyberblitz" constitute a new realm of experience and a new stage of history and type of society. To a large extent, Baudrillard's work consists in rethinking radical social theory and politics in the light of developments of the consumer, media, information, and technological society. Baudrillard's earlier works focus on the construction of the consumer society and how it provides a new world of values, meaning, and activity, and thus inhabit the terrain of Marxism and political economy. From the mid-1970s on, however, reflections on political economy and the consumer society disappear almost completely from his texts, and henceforth simulations and simulacra, media and information, science and new technologies, and implosion and hyperreality become the constituents of a new postmodern world which -- in his theorizing -- obliterate all the boundaries, categories, and values of the previous forms of industrial society while establishing new forms of social organization, thought, and experience. Among Baudrillard's most provocative theses are his reflections on the role of the media in constituting the postmodern world. Indeed, he provides paradigmatic models of the media as all-powerful and autonomous social forces which produce a wide range of effects.[2] To explicate the development and contours of his positions on the media, I shall follow his reflections from the late 1960s to the present, and sort out what I consider to be his contributions and limitations. I shall also be concerned to delineate the political implications of his media theory and to point to alternative theoretical and political perspectives on the media. Baudrillard's Postmodern Media Theory In 1967, Baudrillard wrote a review of Marshall McLuhan's _Understanding Media_ in which he claimed that McLuhan's dictum that the "medium is the message" is "the very formula of alienation in a technical society," and he criticized McLuhan for naturalizing that alienation.[3] At this time, he shared the neo-Marxian critique of McLuhan as a technological reductionist and determinist. By the 1970s and 1980s, however, McLuhan's formula eventually became the guiding principle of his own thought. Baudrillard begins developing his theory of the media in an article "Requiem for the Media" in _Toward a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign_ (1972). The title is somewhat ironic for Baudrillard is really only beginning to develop a social theory in