MEDIÁLNA ANTROPOLÓGIA: VEDA PROROKOV?

Media anthropology: a science of prophets?

Peter Jan Kosmály

Abstrakt: Cieľom tohto textu je určiť širší kontext mediálnych kritík, etiky médií a mediálnych

štúdií, v príspevku je pomenovaný ako mediálna antropológia. Pohľad tejto štúdie bude

predstaviť niektorých mediálnych výskumníkov a odborníkov ako „prorokov mediálnej

antropológie“ a zároveň ukázať, ako mediálny systém (podstatná súčasť mediálnej reality) re-

konštruuje tieto role a vytrháva ich z rúk ľudí (recepčné deformácie). Ďalej bude v práci

preskúmaný Feyerabendov princíp „anything goes“ (čokoľvek sa hodí, čokoľvek je citovateľné)

ako určujúci princíp lepšej, komplexnejšej, organickej recepcie. Súvisiaca epistemická, „post-

hyper-reálna“, „trans-mediálna“ pomôcka bude predstavená metaforicky, ako aj príslušnými

odkazmi (napr. Didactica Bombastica Epistemica – Didactica Magna, Stopárov sprievodca

mediálnou realitou). V závere bude zdôraznený význam takejto „antropo-metódy“ pri pochopení

a spolu-vytváraní mediálnej reality, keďže túto považujeme za alternatívny mód vedomia.

Kľúčové slová: mediálna kritika, recepcia, mediálne štúdiá, etika, interpretácia, mediálna

realita, hyper-realita, systémová teória

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to identify a broader context for media criticism, media ethics

and media studies, here named as media anthropology. The scope of this paper is to introduce

some media studies and criticism related scientists and researchers as “prophets of media

anthropology” and simultaneously to demonstrate how “media system” (the essential part of

media reality) is re-constructing these roles and “grabbing” them from human´s hands

(reception deformations). Finally, the “anything goes” principle of Paul Feyerabend´s book

Against Method is examined as a ruling principle for better, more complex, organic reception.

The related epistemic, “post-hyper-real”, “trans-medial” tool is introduced metaphorically, as

well as with relevant quotations and remarks (e. g. Didactica Bombastica Epistemica or

Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Media Reality). In the conclusion we underline the importance of

such “anthropo-method” for understanding and managing media reality, as we consider it to be

an alternative stream/mode of consciousness.

Key words: media criticism, reception, media studies, ethics, interpretation, media reality,

hyper-reality, system theory

Introduction

At the recently attended conference, the Quo vadis Massmedia conference in Trnava,

Slovakia, the beginning of the paper was a borrowed passage form McLuhan´s

Understanding Media. A passage where McLuhan quotes a Chinese story1 of Tzu-Gung

traveling through the regions north of the river Han, seeing an old man working in his

vegetable garden, watering it. He had done it purely manually, so Tzo-Gung advised him

about mechanical construction to improve watering (a draw-well). The old man angered

and responded:

“I have heard my teacher say that whoever uses machines does all his work like a machine. He

who does his work like a machine grows a heart like a machine... It is not that I do not know of

such things; I am ashamed to use them.”

To introduce one year´s progress here, we call back the presented topic – devoted to

the Organic reception of the media reality, and shall begin with a similar metaphor:

a Russian cartoon named ЁЖИК В ТУМАНЕ (Ježko v tme – A Hedgehog in the Dark). To

illustrate the organic reception of the media reality a hedgehog plays a role of a human

being (so, the character is anthropomorphized) on a journey, exploring and observing

everything new – the sky, a reflection in water, a well, an owl as a symbol for fear

(phobos), etc. and finally grabs a wooden stick and uses it as an extension of his body.

The theme of media reception sustained, the optical is raised from organic reception (as

one of the leading proposals for the critical and ethical inquiry of media reality, main

goal of the systemic and epistemic competence oriented education about media reality)

to the subject of free science/society and its coherence with media reality. It is going to

be introduced as a leading principle of media reception and construction as well – Paul

Feyerabend´s idea of “anything goes”. Several questions are going to be raised, mostly

about observed phenomena in the media reality and quoted through this principle. They

are shown as carrying a reception instruction, as it was described within human texts in

a literary system (prof. Anton Popovič, prof. František Miko from Nitra interpretation

school) and is going to be described in the media system created reality (in the

dissertation thesis Reception instruction in the media reality, written by author of this

paper). But simulacras – post-signs – carry only the sense for the system itself, not any

good, bad – ethic, epistemic or any other “human” category. In the world of

a simulacrum exists a binary value – either 1 or 0, but no Tao. The reception instruction

1 McLUHAN, Marshall. Understanding Media. The extensions of Man. p. 75.

of a simulacrum (J. Baudrillard), techno-image (V. Flusser), exnomination (R. Barthes)

principally differs itself from those created by humans, even though systems: e.g.

a human “joke”, a human painting, slogan to promote something... In the media reality,

system created signs and phenomena aren´t based at any of human principles – the

leading principle could be nowadays called digitalization, but it is the former principle of

effectiveness, production and consumption, and many other phenomena that were in the

system – cybernetic – created and operated media reality mixed together to be all as

one, differing themself only by “anything”, which is taken from the human database of

knowledge and “re-constructed”. Vilém Flusser2 described this onto colors and surfaces

being coded in a two-dimensional reality created and operated by code and its system.

In the media reality, the primary, essential, and in an anthropological sense denotative

meaning of the surface or color is “re-constructed”, as well as its potential for being

a reception instruction. In media reality, colors were “re-constructed” by the

constitutional, semiotic mechanism Barthes called exnomination in a sense of

“technological images” mentioned by V. Flusser into a specific sign denoting itself:

“The simulacrum is never that which conceals the truth--it is the truth which conceals that there

is none. The simulacrum is true.”3

1. Language de(con)struction in media reality, the call for “an epistemic tool”

"Language," it says, "is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mind-bogglingly

big it is..." 4

We have led this passage from The Hitchhiker´s Guide to the Galaxy, originally the

word “language” is replaced with the word “space” – the language is our space, our

species space – cultural, anthropological, and social; beginning with “forms” of language

and ending with complex (hypnotic) formulas as super-market, tele-vision, etc. Nor could

the best linguists decide whether language is made of archetypal, let´s say

anthropological constants, such as language structures in mind or being taught in the

society, neither can they draw a line – put a materialistic, “objective” classification or

2 The source text: BYSTŘICKÝ, Jiří. Media and codification (Média a kodifikace). In Teorie vědy 2/2003, p. 93 – 116 and the book FLUSSER, Vilém. Towards a Philosophy of Photography (Za filosofií fotografie). Praha: Hynek, 1994. More at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vilém_Flusser 3 POSTER, Mark – BAUDRILLARD, Jean. Selected writings. Cambridge, UK: Polity, 1988. ISBN 0-7456-0586-9. quoted through the Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacra_and_Simulation (03/2011) 4read more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hitchhiker´s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy

characteristics (they try: codify it with vocabularies, encyclopedias, etc.). But, according

to the object of their lifetime “science”-ing, the view may not be so mechanistic – it is an

attempt to examine and explain it within the terms of itself. We called this a “paradox of

the linguistic neutral” – referring to Derrida´s and others remarks, that the language

cannot be clarified within language terms, or even knowledge structures. Nietzsche even

declared the language a cage. But back to the linguistic neutral – are linguists able to and

do they have the right to decide what the language is? Are they able to create and

perform a scientific research of it? Moreover, what is the language? Is it a system, a net,

or even a network? What creates the language – what remains: words, meanings,

idioms... or knowledge?

A classic of media science, Harold Lasswell while sciencing media, his historical

reality5 pointed out, that media have a function of the social heritage transmission. So

we add – besides the question what is language and what science uses to examine it –

the question is what may the media be? Very simply, the cover of the textbook named

Mediální osmonoh (Media octopus: quoting V. Flusser´s metaphor media as an octopus) –

an introduction to the media anthropology does give the answer6 – media regarding any

view were and would be a human creation – paraphrasing Marshall McLuhan the

medium is:

any instrument that helps humans – that extends their abilities,

the “message” included – quoting McLuhan´s The Medium is The Message/Massage.

At this point we declare a strict solution: language “sciencing” as well as the science

itself, the media reception and media education have to be revolutionized. It should be

done with the arising methodological view called media anthropology. Simultaneously,

the actual state of hypnosis, media narcosis7, a reception through destructive

consumption8, should be replaced with the media reception we call “an organic

reception”.

5 In this study we simplify this to a “media reality. We try to point out, that Harold Lasswell – a classic of the media discourse, that tried to explain media, had got this views based on his experience as living in his historical period. 6 A textbook written in 2009/2010 by author of this paper for his Prague media communication students, yet not published. 7 McLuhan´s “deformed reception of media reality” concept, the type causing narcotic dependence, neurotic reactions and long-term frustration. 8 According to prof. B. Heilbrunn, a professor of marketing, this is the most used type of consumption in „nowadays“ society – in the cultural industry times.

The media anthropology as presented in this paper straightens the view of media as

an organic system. If we proposed in the foregoing lines the need of an organic reception

of media, we should now explain, why it is not free, not organic. Furthermore, we will

suppose even more: that media reality produces what we people call “lies” – untruth,

false illusions and irresponsibly.

That is because the media reality is based on other elements/fundaments as is the

human society. Media reality, as it is going to be proven soon, doesn´t recognize

(because of binary valuation: either 0 – nothing or 1 – anything; differing principally

from the classic gnostic opposites Logos leading to Gnosis and the Emptiness) categories

known by human beings. It de-constructs, mixes, constructs, simulates, re-organizes –

a “prophet” of a media anthropological view of media, prof. Vilém Flusser, accents:

“Všetko dianie dnes smeruje na obrazovku, na filmové plátno, na fotografiu, aby sa tak stalo vecnou konfiguráciou. Tým však zároveň každá činnosť stráca historický charakter a stáva sa magickým rituálom a večne opakovateľným pohybom. (...) Nástroje a prístroje vykonávajú prácu tak, že vytrhávajú predmety z prírody a informujú ich, to znamená: menia svet. Ale aparáty nevykonávajú prácu v tomto zmysle. Ich zámerom nie je zmeniť svet, ale zmeniť

význam sveta.“ 9

Author of this paper has hardly ever omitted during his lectures on media

communication the difference between the information theory and information society

and the process of artificial in-formation, which is considered to be a higher, system

process (in media reality, which is created by the media system, as a part of political,

social, cultural, anthropological, etc., system).

Another pioneer of the anthropological view of media, Herbert Marcuse, gave 40

years ago the answer, that the universe of language has been closed10. The language as

a part of cognitive processes was/is deprived of its autonomy, critics and demonstrative

power (linguists may recall the classic Jacobson´s roles of language). The language was

turned into a toy of The Mighty, because governments, supervisors (gatekeepers) and

“political correctness saloons” have the last word, because they lead people to “do

something”, “buy” and “receive/accept”.

As we put down the goo-goggles of media optics (Jan Amos Komenský explained it

poetically and very precisely in his work Labyrinth of the World and Paradise of the

Heart) or vice versa, put on some “demystificating X ray” glasses (as suggested by Roland

Barthes in his Mythology), we will be able to see the real – or at least in the sense, what

9 FLUSSER, Vilém. Komunikológia. Bratislava, 2002. p. 18, 22. quoted In VALČEK, Peter (2005). Sperryho syndróm. p. 37. 10 MARCUSE, Herbert. One-Dimensional Man. p. 86.

the real means to humans (the quest for the holy authenticity – raised by the Frankfurt

Critic School).

Then we raise the question again – what is actually media nowadays? And what are

they transmitting11? Are we able to answer these questions in the case of “John Hus

Memorial” – located in Zbraslav, Prague, Czech republic? As a (hu)man stands on the

street, he sees on his left a saw shop, Husquarna, and on the right a statute – memorial of

Czech national prophet, Jan Hus, remembering that he was burned to death for the truth.

It would be nothing special, omitting the etymology; the brand – called in Slovak

linguistics logonym (M. Imrichová) – it might in this context – directly an authentic scene

– be understood as comprising two sememes (basic unit of semantics): first the Name

Hus, second the word element “škvarit”, to broil – in flames for example. It seems as an

unpardonable parody of human media, human knowledge and reception, human history

and the very essential of our culture. Actually you can even “experience” this

phenomenon electronically, in a specific, “true and clear”, technocratic manner: if you

try to seek this in Google Earth, you might stand somewhere at Elišky Přemyslovny

Street in Zbraslav, in front of Jan Hus Memorial, and on the left you will see a shop with

“re-painted” blue roof with no logo, no Husquarna.

the medium is the message/massage

The same media-“anthropological” inquiry could be executed at the “hand raised”

symbol. If it primarily stands for a revolution, revolting gesture, secondarily “re-passed”

and fixed in culture through statues and monuments, thirdly – proceeded through the

exnomination mechanism this gesture remains in media reality of the suburban train

pure functional: you have to hang (on), or else you fall on the floor. In that case you

would probably not only “have” stars around your head, as imaginated in cartoons, but

11

or transs-missing? as noticed the corrector of this paper, Mr. Stefan Smith

also see some of them on the floor. Isn´t it sarcastic? In order to observe stars in the sky

(as the Hedgehog in the Dark) – nevertheless arguing about natural and metaphysical

observation – you “might” securely observe them at the floor of the suburban train

everyday travelling to work – the leading principle of this absurdity.

To illustrate more deformations in the media reality, again through the principle

“anything goes”, we may grasp into the “consumer shelf/basket”.

This may be a pure assumption, but the major value of this product

was perhaps calculated as a ratio of a manufacturing – producing

prize and satisfaction of consumer´s needs (that are constantly

programmed by marketing system in the media reality) and this is

probably the case of “cost economization” related with producing

a Slovak and a Czech language package mutation. The name of this

product is a condensation of Slovak word “Práskacie” and Czech

word “Práskací”. Such a type of media object creation was already mentioned by

S. Freud as condensed interjections – Verdichtung12, where interjections are specific

shortcuts as in dream or joke13.

So who decided, to whom was this blessed idea given, and who ordered and released

this? And why? Both questions could be briefly answered:“m. system” and “m. reality”.

Marcuse described it prophetically exactly: he thinks, that the dialectic character of

the original language reminding of the tension between “is” and “supposed to be”

(simply, the matter of ethics) is suppressed/repressed and the “new language” insists on

shortcut-ing (cutting, pasting, thanks to the computer program Office everyone is

involved, everyone is a surgeon – of own language). Philosophers call therefore the

result a clip-consciousness14. These shortcuts reorganize the act of designation – simply

giving a name – in the way of replacing meanings by signs/brands/logos, etc.; by

repressing evolution and development and establishing hypnotic formulae that declare

themselves as legitimate and “real”, “true”... (again, very simple example – a billboard

announcing “100% discounts? 100 years guarantee? Stop lies!” and promoting “real

discounts”), identifying person/object with its function, etc.15 Herbert Marcuse claims in

his study One-Dimensional Man, that communication means (we often call “media”) and 12 VALČEK, Peter. Sperryho syndróm. p. 85. 13

Author of this study would like to turn the attention at the media-anthropological research of Slovak media theoretic Peter Valček, who has for the first time explained this to him during his university study in Bratislava. 14

Another brilliant Slovak research in this topic is led by prof. Ľubomír Plesník in Nitra. 15 MARCUSE, Herbert. One-Dimensional Man. p. 91.

the information and entertainment overflow that has gone out of control (Frankfurt

Critic School, which Marcuse belonged to, used the term culture industry), carry with

them prescribed (Stuart Hall´s term framed) patterns and schemes, certain rational and

emotional reactions, which connect producers with consumers in one ... simulation of

reality. These products indoctrinate and manipulate, they “support the false

consciousness, which is immune against own falseness” and create schemes of one-sided

thinking and behavior16.

So we raise the question, how is the recipient able to “free”, liberate himself from this

repression, interpret media, and as the result – to live the media and live them up,

maybe finally leave them and explore new ones. All the movements around critical

theory, critical reading (U. Eco, etc.), critical aesthetics, criticism of the culture industry

and imperialism (Frankfurt School), the reception theory (S. Hall, etc.) could and will in

this paper be seen as outstanding from the former literary criticism culture movement,

as exploring a new area – for the last 100 years for language scoped scientists – the area

of media communication. Yet, the demarcation line has not vanished, still there are

scientists, that do not include media communication within their study of language – the

literary system and literary reality are well described (e. g. by Anton Popovič in the

“Tvorba a recepcia” – Creation and reception – with co-author František Miko) – the

problem is that many linguists study their (semiotic, linguistic) artifacts within the

media reality, related to other artifacts in a specific way, in a manner, that can only be

understood by translating it. The call for a translation is seen in work of semiotics (Jurij

Lotman), media philosophers (Peter Valček, Vilém Flusser) and also by the author of this

paper.

This has to be done by emerging science, carrying the term for the whole study of

media and its effects on humans. The marked demarcation line was, in our opinion, set

by one of media anthropology´s prophets (among already mentioned – Stuart Hall,

Herbert Marcuse) – Marshall McLuhan. The later defined media – or we can say, his

definition culturally remained (in a form of meme17): “the medium is the message”

(eventually massage, Mess Age, Mass Age), following the concept of Understanding Media

as carriers: extensions of human abilities. Moreover, we have recently realized and

debated the discourse – knowledge base and the source of the leading – so we are

16 Ibid. p. 43. 17 Additional information about The Meme Theory e. g. at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme (quot. 01/2011).

already aware of the media discourse – as the sum of knowledge about media – yet we

have to re-discover the leading, the ideology. Stuart Hall sums very briefly the concept

that we called “paradox of a linguistic neutral” and the “anthropological” – or

methodological – debate about it:

“...it is the discourse which constitutes the subject position of the social agent, and not, therefore, the social agent which is the origin of the discourse – the same system of rules that makes the spherical object into a football, makes me the player. The existence of objects is independent of their discursive articulation...”18

Beyond the concept of cultural imperialism19, in media anthropology´s view seen as

consistently concurring on McLuhan´s 1960´s concepts was Jean Baudrillard´s 1980´s

definition of Simulations – Simulacras – and the reality they constitute: hyper-reality.

Simulacras, simply, are a stage of sign evolution – they are signs (returning to Flusser´s

concept of apparatus quoted Slovak in the beginning) not carrying any meaning, they are

signs created only for the simple purpose – or we may say function – of designation,

which has essentially different nature for humans from that it has for robots – systems.

As simulacras are a part of cultural industry (or media reality), they are obviously driven

by another vehicle than classic, semiotic, signs – these are driven by a human vehicle

Peirce defined as the Interpretant20. Partly this artificial system was defined by prophets

of media anthropology – one outstanding from media psychology, Gerhard Maletzke´s

view of communication drew another demarcation line between people and (their)

apparates, already “sedimented” (in a sense of sociological explanation of knowledge

distribution) in a form of meme, e.g. “a working team”. Maletzke´s communication

model21 includes anthropological categories as communicator´s self-image, personality,

working team, pressure and constrains related to feedback – reception, that can be

various (even discommunication or opposite reading). These categories may for media

anthropology serve as a psychological base for an anthropological view at human

relations with/to media and its actual degree; neurosis, frustration and media addiction

can be proven. The role of an epistemic, organic reception must be revealed, as well as

the role of prophets, teachers and/or shamans in the human society and human-based

systems (such as language) and their deformation or even destruction within media

18 HALL, Stuart. Representation: cultural representations and signifying practices. p. 70. 19 Further information can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_influence (quoted 01/2011). 20 More about Peirce´s semiotic asset can be found at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/peirce-semiotics/#Int (quoted 01/2011). 21 Further information and the topic of communication theory can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication_theory (quoted 01/2011).

reality – finally leading to an evidence base for a daily exploration and treatment of

misunderstood human relation to media. Simply to prove, it seems as nonsense to apply

human created and human understood ethics onto events in media reality. In 2004, in

California, USA, the DHMO syndrome22, or better to say (in the sense of a semiotic view

of a secondary signification, exnomination), the “problem of DHMO” took place. As an

example of a pure semiotic sign in a manner of a simulacrum, its essence needs to be

understood through terms of system (apparatus) creation of hyper-reality. Because any

step taken by humans applying the ethics, could and would be digitalized, mixed or

framed, suspended in media reality – therefore it has no anthropological constitution, no

real value or existence (in media reality it can be e.g. owned, or forgotten after another

new story). So this designation – DHMO (H2O) is and isn´t water – is nothing unusual,

there is no paradox, as we describe it in our stylistic, rhetoric, logic, etc., theory.

So we raise the final question – the quest for an instrument. We hope to find an

epistemic one for Hitchhiker in the Global Village, something like a Hitchhiker´s Guide to

the Media reality23.

2. Epistemological anarchism and the method against method:

“anything goes” (...in a free science)

If the legendary Hitchhiker´s Guide to the Galaxy – a fictive book explained in a book;

as a form of media reception followed by media production – begins with words

“Don´t panic”,

the Hitchhiker´s Guide to the Media reality, a book born as a metaphor of a fictive

book explained in a book, could begin with the same and add:

“Anything goes”

We try to esteem that a “handbook”, moreover mental tool – translating mechanism –

can serve as an epistemic response to media reality, the process of reception leading to

media production. Epistemic in the sense of social heritage/knowledge distribution, in

the sense of transcending the language of knowledge and revealing its elementary

constituting bricks (as in a pattern), a view delivered by Jacques Derrida calling these

22 Referring to http://www.dhmo.org a case of an official trial against dangerous substance (“that can be found as a major compound of acid rains”) – dihydrogenmonooxide, which was postponed after “revealing the semiotic secret”: DHMO is simply the Latin term for H2O, water. 23 Author of this paper called this innovative book, epistemological tool, also Didactica Bombastica Epistemica, referring to Czechoslovak pedagogical icons: J. A. Komensky´s work Didactica Magna and D. Lichard´s Rozhovory o Matici slovenskej.

elements “traces” or by scientists trying to re-map the ideology in language – e.g. Benoît

Heilbrunn: semiological pollution, receiver´s reception of logo; Stuart Hall´s

rediscovery of ideology24: the ideology delivered may not be the ideology

accepted/consumed, because of “struggle over meaning”; Slavoj Zizek´s

psychoanalytical concern about acceptance of ideology25; assuming Marx´s thesis about

commodity fetishism as ideology fetishism26; “public sphere” discussion raised by Jürgen

Habermas, or by or the concept of responsibility assumption27, emerging through

centuries and ideologies. Author of this paper suggests own solution, based on the key

function of the review genre – to orientate28. As a genre, review operates within the

literary system – production of literary knowledge (as shown by prof. Popovič and prof.

Miko); it is a mechanism of classification and orientation, the first step of reception,

which ends with production (e.g. text of literary knowledge or literary commercial, a

form of self-promotion within the system). That epistemic tool is as simple as the

dialogue between a priest and a farmer about Slovak cultural institution found in

Daniel Lichard´s work and as instrumental as glasses – goggles, which misled the Pilgrim

in Komensky´s work Labyrinth of the World and Paradise of the Heart (Labyrint světa a

ráj srdce). The idea of the instrument is to review – give one´s opinion, even more a

reception instruction or promotion, to orientate.

The only one tool, dealing with hyper-reality – based on irregulative and

unpredictable relations – a principle, that one itself can be described as the “cement” for

media reality – is the principle “anything goes”. If this principle would serve media-

anthropological based reviews of media reality, it could teach us to control, to liberate

the reception in order to “anti-reception” of today´s destructive consumption.

“It is clear, the, that the idea of a fixed method, or of a fixed theory of rationality, rests on too naive a view of man and his social surroundings. To those who look at the rich material provided by history, and who are not intent on impoverishing it in order to please their lower instincts, their craving for intellectual security in the form of clarity, precision, ,objectivity´, ,truth´, it will become clear that there is only one principle that can be defended under all circumstances and in all stages of human development. It is the principle: anything goes.“ 29

24 HALL, Stuart. The rediscovery of ´ideology´: return of the repressed in media studies. 25 Basic information at http://www.egs.edu/faculty/slavoj-zizek/biography/ (quoted 01/2011). 26 Was Marx a media-anthropology pioneer, as he described a changing relation between human and its media: the commodity fetishism? 27 „Responsibility assumption is a doctrine in the personal growth field holding that each individual has substantial or total responsibility for the events and circumstances that befall them in their life.“ quoted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsibility_assumption (01/2011). 28 A related study – KOSMÁLY, Peter. Forms of the review in periodic press (Podoby recenzie v periodickej tlači) – published in 2005. 29 FEYERABEND, Paul. Against Method. p. 19.

These are words written by a philosopher from the 1960´s, Paul Feyerabend, famous

for, sometimes pejoratively marked as “trendy” epistemological anarchism. The core of

epistemological anarchism is the quest for something (nowadays, e.g. in quantum physic

the actual quest is for the “God Particle” The Higgs Boson30) that can instrumentally

serve to analyze, to “science” the object. And for Feyerabend this was not a question of

a linguistic component, or social/political constellations, or a question of scientific

revolutions (Thomas Kuhn), it more was a question of principle, guidance and security

through “scientist´s journey into the deep of unknown”. Nor is true, that Feyerabend was

against science, or even tried to relativize it. He was, actually, one of the pioneers

objecting that a relation between human and its media (incl. language and ideology) is

tight, but dense and can be tracked vice versa. The reason for naming him a prophet of

media anthropology can be readable from the quotation, where he explains, what his

intention is – in fact “to humanize sciencing”:

“I therefore again warn the reader that I don´t have the intention of replacing ´old and dogmatic´ principles by ´new and more libertarian ones´. For example, I am neither a populist for whom an appeal to ´the people´ is the basis of all knowledge, nor a relativist, for whom there are no ´truths as such´ but only truths for this or that group and/or individual. All I say is that non-experts often know more than experts and should therefore be consulted and that prophets of truth (including those who use arguments) more often than not are carried along by a vision that clashes with the very events the vision is supposed to be exploring.”31

So the ethical compound in his philosophical solution of the “everyday matter” is

clear. Once again, he repeats it in the Introduction to Chinese Edition of his book:

“But I am against ideologies that use the name of science for a cultural murder.”32

So his argumentation is more epistemic, empirical, than logical. In the idiomatic

language of this study we could say, that he tries to imply a human principle into the

methodology; into a system, that can either tend to be homeostatic, or to be more and

more complex (according to general system theory). We may also say, that Feyerabend

tries to reveal the humanity in that system, tries to anthropologize more and more

bureaucratic science practices. He argues against traditional essential conditions: hence

science is never a completed process, simplicity, elegance or consistency, are never

necessary. What is more, they are system-based components, conditions for the ideology

of science, for the discursive curriculum – not for knowledge itself. We may think doing

a great science, when all elements pass into our puzzle, but what if the puzzle is a matrix

30 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_boson (quoted 10/2011). 31 FEYERABEND, Paul. Against Method. p. XIII Preface to The Third Edition. 32 FEYERABEND, Paul. Against Method. p. 4.

that should only mislead, apart from the “scienced” object. As the pattern is set and we

are only seeking elements to prove/strengthen it (“beat them into the pattern”), there is

no “liberating knowledge” there. Models/images are only a halfway point, not the

conclusion. So we may, with a real scientific method, find some curious, questionable

object/excerpts and it depends on our abilities to “scientify” them, so to find a passing

theory and explain. Yet, Feyerabend in his book Against Method explains the relation

between reception and creation. He also realizes, that “creation of a thing” and “full

understanding of a correct idea of the thing” are not even parts of the same, indivisible

process (divisible only for the purpose of exploration), moreover he claims that this

process is not and could not be guided by a program, because it is driven by a passion

(he quotes Kierkegaard). The same is announced through media anthropology and the

inquiry on reception instructions: the reception is a specific human activity that may

also serve to cope with artificial systems (e.g. review for orientation in literary

knowledge). In a sense of the anti-establishment movement of the 1960´s and 1970´s,

when the Against Method book was composed, and the contemporary “illustrated

metaphysic”, we may say that the knowledge “flows, expands itself” the same way as

a universe does. This should be the only one image that we have to “imprint” through

the iconoclastic scientification of any object. From the definition of the role, which

anarchy plays in scientific progress, we may see, that Feyerabend slightly confuses both

meanings; he claims that anarchism helps to achieve progress also in the law-and-order

science, hence he applies the moral on the method. It is obvious, that every theory has its

“known” and “unknown” and Feyerabend tries to present the liberty we have in relating

both, not omitting that a professional sticks to the very essential – the passion from

getting known, explored, explained, etc. We may say he refuses to give a plain definition

of progress; he suggests this would be done, when a strict definition would not be

needed anymore and the “progress prejudice” would be transgressed (transcended).

Knowledge is here understood not as a series of self-consistent theories that converge

into an ideal view; not as a gradual approach to the truth, but as an ocean of mutually

incompatible alternatives, each part of a collection, forcing others into greater

articulation and competing to be a part of the “life-giving” process of developing

consciousness33. Then he summarizes, that the role of the scientist is not to “seek for the

33 Ibid. p. 21.

truth”, to praise god or systematize observation, his role is to “make the weaker case

stronger” and thereby sustain the motion of the whole.

To extract the semiology from Feyerabend´s book, we mention his examination of the

tower argument used by Aristotelians to refute the motion of Earth (a stone falling from

tower falls vertical and straight down to the Earth surface) and the revolution set by

Galileo´s science. The point is that Aristotelian materialistic concept does not, in a self-

reflecting manner, include the explorer itself. It “glues” sensory observation (of the

phenomenon) and “idea production” (statement):

“But under normal circumstances such a division does not occur; describing a familiar situation is, for the speaker, an event in which statement and phenomenon are firmly glued together. This unity is the result of a process of learning that starts in one´s childhood. From our very early days we learn to react to situations with the appropriate responses, linguistic or otherwise. The teaching procedures both shape the ´appearance´ or ´phenomenon´, and establish a firm connection with words, so that finally the phenomena seem to speak for themselves without outside help or extraneous knowledge. They are what the associated statements assert them to be. The language they ´speak´ is, of course, influenced by the beliefs of earlier generations which have been held for so long that they no longer appear as separate principles, but enter the terms of everyday discourse, and, after the prescribed training, seem to emerge from the thing themselves.”34

Feyerabend uses here the term phenomenon as a synonym for “event” (in the

meaning within the media discourse) – “appearance” and obviously with a notion what

Husserl´s phenomenology considers35 – acts of consciousness and their study, structures

of the consciousness and related mechanism – at this point we call out our subject of

study: reception instructions, which can be seen either as “glued” into the product

(immanent), or “prescribed”, “framed”, “linked with the ideology” and so may be

transcended. The reveal of ideology, discourse, or “system of leading” is present in

Feyerabend´s book too, as he continues previously quoted claim with:

At this point we may want to compare, in our imagination and quite abstractly, the results of the teaching of different languages incorporating different ideologies.”36

For example, in the stone argument, it was the motion of the stone that was a reason

for refuting the motion of the Earth. The problem is, that the observation statement

´stone is falling straight down´ must have referred to a movement in absolute space. The

same are the Pilgrim´s goggles from Komensky´s work, the same are the recipient´s

pressures and constrains that are based on the materialistic and visual character of

34 Ibid, p. 57. 35 „Phenomenology, in Husserl's conception, is primarily concerned with the systematic reflection on and analysis of the structures of consciousness, and the phenomena which appear in acts of consciousness“ more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenomenology_(philosophy). 36 FEYERABEND, Paul. Against Method. p. 57.

language used to state observations and knowledge. An “argument from observation” is

therefore misleadingly connected with the ideology and cannot be therefore “real”, it

only could made be real. Whether is it denotatively interpreted Bohr´s model of atom,

or meaninglessly used communication formula stating, that communication acts as

a magic bullet, as a process beginning at sender and ending at receiver (older, Lasswell

based models, are a part of the media discourse and are a stage of evolving “mental

maps”, as it show Maletzke´s, Hall´s, Baudelaire´s, etc. more structured, even more “real”

communication theories). Simply, to interpret it a bit ironically, in a manner of a natural

interpretation, the more words (and worlds) we created, the more visual and mental

metaphors, images we use... the more is the lack of precise meaning. This can be and was

brilliantly demonstrated in the bachelor’s thesis Logo, Logonym, Logotype and Icon,

which author of this paper conceived and consulted for his student Ľudovít Pastorák at

the J. A. Commenius University in Prague. In the section on Logotype and pragmatic

representations of the logo, it was quoted an internet survey on logo “reception”. The

author surveyed about 40 people, so we used the same questionnaire and involved four

professionals, sign-makers, image-makers; people who create logos daily: their answers

actually rejected the relevance of that inquiry. We found out, that there is a crucial

difference between a professional´s statement (what logo is, how is it readable, color

balance, artistic value) and of those we called “laics”. As professionals create logos

and/or other communication elements, they understand the principles, but “laics” do

not – they receive and what is more, also recipe, the final form, the appearance, so they

are not able to judge about principles, about quality, in fact about nothing. Their view

represents the “argument from observation” in the case of Earth´s movement (the stone

falls vertically, so a movement of the surface cannot exist). The “force of the argument

from observation” needs to be considered. Feyerabend also raises the question about

describing one´s observation, when he does not know the language – a communication

code. That means, if we want to prove the expert´s work, the desired effect, we ask for an

opinion of “laics”, but if we want to explore the reception of expert´s work, we have to

re-think. Furthermore, Feyerabend raises the question of media – as he mentions

Galileo´s argument to remove sensation (perceived excitement of senses) as the medium

– the carrier of the message – through a new channel – a scientific discourse of

“telescopic exploration”. But the initial experience with telescope is, on one hand an

essential, indifferent, and contradictory thesis for the ruling theory, on the other hand it

does not give a true picture of the sky – the truth is seen as an object for science,

philosophy:

“Moreover, the extension and the internal structure of the image is entirely determined by the telescope and the eyes of the observer: it is the telescope that decides how large the diffraction disks are going to be, and it is human eye that decides how much of the structure of these disks is going to be seen... We must subdivide what we perceive to find a core that mirrors the stimulus and nothing else.”37

The reason, why is this book, and Feyerabend´s “supertemporal” not “trendy”

philosophy important in media anthropology, is the evolving consciousness that flows

into this methodology: Feyerabend wrote this in McLuhan´s times, before Baudrillard´s

and Eco´s analyses of the semiotic universe, before Derrida´s re-construction and

tracing, before Foucault´s discourse analysis; this view was later marked as

technological/media determinism, what means a fear to be overridden by robots and

systems. But Feyerabend and McLuhan were prophetic enough to mark them as

prophets of media anthropology. They were convinced, that what rules these principles,

is human. So they described their attempts to form a simple theory of understanding

media, understanding science and in their legacy we will try to form a simple theory of

understanding reception, something in the sense of ideology de-construction and

simultaneously in the sense of a Hitchhiker´s Guide to Media Reality. It could begin like

this:

“The explanations did not make the matter at all clear to me at the time; but they were not therefore useless...”38

3. Ideology deconstruction

Only a brief concept can be manifested here. As we sometimes join or put together

scientists/researchers and call them prophetic – from this point of view, it has to be

added some additional names.

First of all, Roland Barthes, has to be mentioned and his “short novel” on mythology,

where he not only illustrates and explains mystification through various short essays,

moreover he adds a theoretical passage on mythology. He suggests an anti-mystification

37 Ibid. p. 110. 38 MILL, John Stuart. Autobiography. Essential Works of John Stuart Mill. ed. Lerner, New York, 1965, p. 21 quoted from FEYERABEND, Paul. Against Method. p. 119.

mechanism – a mechanism that reveals ideology and strips the meaning. It comprises

three steps39:

1. Concentrating on the emptied designator (in a myth, of course, which deals with

secondary designation, the denoted meaning from the 1st designation is emptied and

filled with a parasitic meaning, which serves the purpose of mystification, there is no

longer a designation, it is an “exnomination”), the concept is left alone, without any

ambivalence. So the myth, the signification, is clear. It is clear, what stands for what.

This type of view is related to one, who produces such a myth (a form is being

searched for the concept).

2. Reversely, concentrating on the designator as a full – in a specific manner deformed

signified unit; we simply reveal the deformation, the ideology, comprised in the

myth. This view is characteristic to the mythologist, who decomposes the myth and

sees a deformation in the signification – a fake, a hoax, a manipulation.

3. Finally, concentrating on the designator and its unbreakable relation of form and

meaning, we become a reader of the myth, we accept the secondary designation in

the same manner as we did the primary one, although they distinct principally.

The objection raised by Feyerabend – patronage – is as important as the deformation

of designation, mentioned here with the help of Roland Bathes. These prejudices – the

material conditions and support for scientists – are mentioned also in Gerhard

Maletzke´s model of communication (communicator´s arm): the personal background

and influence that it has on one´s work/proficiency. We may object, we may try to

implant an objectivity principle into our work (either science, or media), or even the

ethics principle – it is nothing worthy; until we do not accept, that the concrete

form/manifestation of our “work” is deeply linked with the profession, its social status,

eventually with the discourse and its ideology (e.g. HR or IT is a popular area, therefore

well paid and so has a higher status). Feyerabend calls loudly to “recover those features

of knowledge, which not only inform, but also delight us”40.

39 More in BARTHES, Roland. Mytologie. p. 126-127. 40 Ibid. p. 122.

Conclusion: Media reality – an alternative mode of consciousness?

Regarding the principle “anything goes” a Czech group named ZTOHOVEN (which is

a play of word, could mean “z toho ven: out of that” or “sto hoven: 100 shits”) arranged

a “nuclear explosion” (a digital fake) in the live stream Czech television camera41. They

vindicated themself with such a “proph-ethic” text:

“We are no terrorist or political group, our purpose is not to intimidate or manipulate the society in the very same way as we are witnessing in everyday real life or media. No matter the intentions whether political or those of market, companies, global corporations which secretly manipulate and exert pressure on their products and ideas through every channel possible into the human sub-consciousness. Even the slightest intrusion into this system, appeal on pure human intellect, its ability not to be worked upon is by our opinion harmless inside democratic country.”42

One of the best methods for use of the “anything goes” principle – that can serve as

a relevant reception tool for deconstruction of media reality – are those outstanding

from critical rationalism, so that the last word goes to Paul Feyerabend, because of his

pregnant description of rules, which led also his anarchistic scope from visual

representations through ideology to knowledge and philosophy of science:

“Develop your ideas so that they can be criticized; attack them relentlessly; do not try to protect

them, but exhibit their weak spots; eliminate them as soon as such weak spots have become

manifest...”43

The message (not a massage) that sublimates all the important observations and

notions found in Feyerabend´s prophetic book and the message that constitutes an

approach to media reality and leaves enough liberty for “sciencing” it, is:

“But neither the rules, nor the principles, nor even the facts are sacrosanct.”44

We propose, that media reality is an alternative mode of consciousness generated

with a help of artificial systems (media: language, idioms, designation and secondary

designation, myth, transfer of knowledge, political, social, economic and cultural

context). Therefore we will write, in a form either of a handbook “Hitchhiker´s Guide to

Media Reality” or “Didactica Bombastica Epistemica”, a metaphorical text with the

function Feyerabend has so honestly praised in Galileo´s argumentation – a text

overriding the illustrated metaphysics45, with one clear purpose – to serve the humane

evolution from a media into a transcendental consciousness.

41 More at http://ztohoven.com (quoted 02/2011). 42 http://ztohoven.com/omr.html (quoted 02/2011). 43 Ibid, p. 151. 44 Ibid. p. 123. 45 FEYERABEND, Paul. Against Method. p. 121.

Selected glossary

Anything goes (transl. čokoľvek sa hodí or čokoľvek je citovateľné, použiteľné) – a leading

principle of epistemological anarchism to achieve a freedom of (in) science (Feyerabend, P.

Against Method, p. 19).

Conservatisms in science (transl. konzervativizmus vo vede) – influence of background, such as

linguistic, personal, religious, cultural, that is suppressed in order to achieve ´more objective´

observations (Feyerabend, P. Against Method, p. 11).

Consistency condition (transl. podmienka súdržnosti) – a demand for scientific observations:

new theories must be consistent with older findings. According to Feyerabend, this condition

is unreasonable, because it preserves the older theory, not the better one (Feyerabend, P.

Against Method, p. 24).

Critical rationalism (transl. kritický racionalizmus) – a methodology used by Karl Popper,

quoted as a possible alternative to Feyerabend´s methodology, but later proven as acceptable

for school philosophers, but not for the question of human freedom (Feyerabend, P. Against

Method, p. 154).

Discommunication (transl. diskomunikácia) – a state of no content having been communicated,

quoting Stuart Hall and his reception theory.

Epistemological anarchism (transl. epistemologický anarchizmus) – a methodology promoted

in Feyerabend´s book to achieve more liberate, more real observations (epistemology) and

theories (philosophy of science), “science is an essentially anarchistic enterprise”

(Feyerabend, P. Against Method, p. 9).

Framing, Framekeeping (trans. rámcovanie) – again, S. Hall theory is applied – a frame is the

context, which is kept by media communication, which frames the content, therefore also

likewise gatekeeping the framekeeping activity could be described.

Freedom (transl. sloboda) – the very essential element of knowledge; unfortunately, as modern

theories become clear and ´reasonable´ only after incoherent parts of them have been used

for a long time, liberating the science means avoiding a theory to be beaten into a pattern

(Feyerabend, P. Against Method, p. 17-18).

Ideology (transl. ideológia) – “naive view of man and his social surroundings” does produce the

illusion, that a fixed method, fixed theory of rationality, can deliver real, “objective” truth

(Feyerabend, P. Against Method, p. 18); a discourse based prejudice of observation.

Media (transl. médium) quoting Marshall McLuhan the medium is an extension of human

abilities and activities, an improvement of them.

Media reality (transl. mediálna realita) – the reality provided, constituted, operated by media;

described and observed as an alternative stream/mode of consciousness.

Natural interpretations (transl. prirodzené, naivné výklady) – conclusions, that are taken from

visually observed phenomena with simple reasoning (Feyerabend, P. Against Method, p. 58).

Prophet, Prophecy (transl. prorok, proroctvo) – in this paper is used for scientists and

researchers, which have foretold the happening in media reality.

Reception (transl. recepcia) – a process of consumption and interpretation of any content in

order to produce, better, an additional one (primary and secondary texts e.g.), only an

organic, systematic reception leads to meaningful knowledge distribution.

Tower argument (or the stone arg. transl. argument veže) – the reasoning argument for refuting

the motion of the Earth before Galileo and Copernicus: the stone is falling direct to the surface

(Feyerabend, P. Against Method, p. 57).

Bibliography

BARTHES, Roland. Mytologie. Prague: Dokořán, 2004. ISBN 80-86569-73-X

FEYERABEND, Paul. Against Method. First published London: New Left Books, 1975. 3rd Edition

published by Verso, 1993. ISBN 0-86091-481-X

HALL, Stuart. “Culture, the Media and the ´Ideological Effect´”. In Mass Communication and

Society. Ed. James Curran, Michael Gurevitch, and Janet Woollacott. London: Edward Arnold,

1977.

HALL, Stuart. (ed.) Representation: cultural representations and signifying practices. London –

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HALL, Stuart. “The rediscovery of ´ideology´: return of the repressed in media studies.” In Culture,

Society and the Media. New York: Routledge, 1982.

KOSMÁLY, Peter. Podoby recenzie v periodickej tlači. In Otázky žurnalistiky, 2005, XLVIII, No. 1

– 2, p. 113-121.

KOSMÁLY, Peter. Organická recepcia mediálnej reality. In Quo vadis massmedia. Quo vadis

marketing. (a conference preceeding ) Trnava: Faculty of Massmedia Communication of UCM,

2010. ISBN 978-80-8105-183-8

LICHARD, Daniel. Rozhovory o Matici slovenskej. Banská Bystrica: Matica slovenská, 1865.

MARCUSE, Herbert. One-Dimensional Man. London: Abacus, 1972.

VALČEK, Peter. Sperryho syndróm – kognitívna dynamika a multimediálny chronotop.

Bratislava: Pictus 2007. ISBN 80-7128-011-9

Internet resources (assessed December 2010-February 2011)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vilém_Flusser http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacra_and_Simulation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hitchhiker´s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_influence http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/peirce-semiotics/#Int http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication_theory http://www.dhmo.org http://www.egs.edu/faculty/slavoj-zizek/biography/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsibility_assumption http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_boson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenomenology_(philosophy) http://ztohoven.com

Kontaktné údaje (Contact)

PhDr. Peter Jan Kosmály Fakulta masmédií, Paneurópska VŠ v Bratislave – Faculty of Mass Media, Pan European College in Bratislava, VŠ Zdeňka Kalisty – The College of Zdeněk Kalista, Prague Fr. Křížka 15, 170 00 Praha, Česká republika peter.kosmaly@gmail.com