TV: Battleground of Representation.

(Part 5)

As Ang grapples with this contradiction she is in danger of falling into an epistemological black hole: if it is the lack of sensitivity to small audiences that institutions are to be criticised for, epitomised by the rise of mass communications studies, then isn’t it also the imperative of cultural theorists to be sensitive and attentive to these small groups leading to knowing much, much more about them? Surely the gathering of knowledge is conceitedly about making "abstractions" less abstract, even if this means demystifying the 'secret' knowledge contained within the abstraction. Institutional knowledge then is not simply the will to control, it is also the will to know, and knowledge of course is power, a power also claimed by theoreticians.

Control per se comes about because there are the economic circumstances to be able to use knowledge to improve those economic circumstances. This is in itself not a sufficient cause for criticism, unless it is clearly stated that it is not a simple jealousy of the power of another's knowledge in competition with your own. There must be, but seldom is, a clear statement that the ‘benefits’ of your knowledge will be ‘shared’ and not appropriated by or will develop into a centralised, institutional power of its own. This kind of guarantee is one that science and research rarely make; perhaps in truth they can never make (i.e. the military command industrial complex).

But if what the theoreticians are talking about is greater knowledge, for instance how to best satisfy a myriad of complex desires, how then do we know, except by a well-intentioned and abstract ‘faith’, that these desires may not turn out to be what we idealistically think they ought to be? If the tables were turned, and the critics had their day, and if those desires turn out to be not what we expected, indeed are something they abhor, do those social theorists undertake to abstain from a neo-Reithian strategy of moral or cultural ‘uplift’ against the ‘uneducated’ or ‘ill-informed' multiplicity of minorities in our brave new televisual constituency?

More Scientific Tools

Not only are the empiricist methods of audience research used and abused by the institution but so are other scientific tools as well. One that stands out is the technology of television itself. Winston's look at the systemic technological "suppression of radical potential" (1986) through a regime of scientific-industrial methodology (co-existent with that of audience measurement) provides a methodological analysis of the ways in which the institutional viewpoint determines what the technology looks like. The hegemonic scientific-industrial structures create a form of technology that suits the purposes of science and industry, and constructs a society that also suits these purposes (a trained and obedient workforce - willing to work long hours with their primary escapist recompense the TV).

For another more recent writer this shaping of the technology can be defined as its one-way, non-interactive mode:

The idea of the audience itself, as a construct of the institution, is as much a part of the tools of institutional domination as is the methodology of audience measurement with its abstract representation of actual living audiences: "procedures of systems management and quality control are applied not only to the technology of TV but also to the audience of TV" (Attallah p 95). I would go further and define these institutionally "imagined" audiences as the ultimate form of institutional technology, a technology that short-circuits meaning and prevents the criticisms of cultural theorists from having any significant effect on the concept's construction and use. Of course, to measure such effects could be difficult...

Power and Representation

The cultural theorists' complaint is really about the lack of political control or power that academic cultural theorists (those who don't need to use numbers, but can perhaps best intuit knowledge) have over industrial-scientific institutions, and this is a valid complaint. In turn ,it is these institutions that control or manage the representation of what we as human beings are. If what 'we are' or are 'represented as' is seemingly appealing to our 'basest instincts' it can also be tempting to go looking for scapegoats (stagehands, the director, etc.) outside the audience.

Some critics act as if they had discovered a skeleton in the cupboard of their family history, something embarrassing that they don't what others to see, much less recognise as part of their heritage. The old complaints about the intelligentsia leading the debate surface again: "it is a major anomaly of contemporary American politics and culture that socialist (progressive) thought has become restricted to mainly highbrow circles - circles in turn restricted mainly to the upper social classes, whose self-interest is ultimately inimical to socialism (progressive ideals)" (Lazere p18).