1. Introduction
In
academia and practical life, advertising is often presented in a
pseudo-critical attitude as a necessary evil, if it is not, for once, evaluated
in a glorifying way as fundamentally positive for the economy and society in
the interest of the advertising industry. This apologetic shedding of crocodile
tears is often accompanied – in defence of a suspicion of manipulation – by an
exculpatory reference to the allegedly scientifically proven far-reaching
ineffectiveness of advertising (Schweiger and Schrattenecker
1986, 210). Criticism of advertising is thus largely exhausted in a culturally
pessimistic moralising agitation about the (sinister) secret (!) seducers à la
Vance Packard[1]. But even “where there was
criticism, enlightened cynical affirmation spreads” (Haug
2001, 201), combined with the disappearance of reality in ideology up to
advertising and consumption as religion.
In Economics,
too, especially in traditional welfare Economics, a distinction is often made
between “good” and “bad” advertising (for a critique, see Baran and Sweezy 1967, 121-123), with only “bad” advertising
being criticised as a means used for misleading, seducing[2]
and manipulating humans and as a waste of money. This gives the impression that
it is only a question of goodwill to fight “bad“ advertising,
to abolish it or at least to mitigate its negative effects. In this view, the
fact that advertising is inevitably an
essential part of the capitalist economic and social system is deliberately
overlooked. Accordingly, for ”good" and bad”
advertising alike, the associated functions and effects with negative
consequences for individuals and society have to be ascertained.
This
contribution aims to lift the ideological veil of apologetics and pseudo-criticism
on advertising somewhat with the help of a reality-based systematic analysis
that contributes to a materialistic theory of advertising. Such theorising
would fall short if it were limited to advertising in the mass media. The
theory and practice of advertising in the media can only be understood and made
accessible to an empirically founded theory if the meaning and functions of
advertising for the media economy are reflected in the context of its economic,
political, and societal functions for the entire economy as well as for the continuity
of the capitalist societal formation in general. In this way, it can also be
understood why in capitalism the entire individual, social and societal life
becomes an “illusion industry” or “diversion industry” (Haug
1972a, 152-158) due to the systemic omnipresence of economic and political,
advertising.
The
content-related and methodological basis of such a theory is a Critique of the Political
Economy of Advertising oriented towards the critique of capitalism and academic
knowledge originally presented by Karl Marx (Capital Volume 1: German: 1962
[1867, 1890]; English: 1990 [1867, 1890])[3]
and its various further developments (for example Heinrich 2012, 2004). In this
context, the academic objective is to consider the economic, political, and
societal functions of (media) advertising, which are necessary in the interest
of the fundamental continuation of capitalist production and capitalist
relations of life, in the general context of societal conflicts of power,
access, and distribution. In doing so, the elementary economic and ideological
functions of advertising for the existence and further development of the market
economy and capitalist economic and societal systems become recognisable. This
means that there is a fundamental importance of advertising for the
entire material, economic, social, political and
cultural human life[4]. Advertising then no
longer appears as a necessary evil but as a necessary "elixir of
life”[5]
for the media industry, the economy, and capitalism as a
whole. For the media industry, especially for private commercial
broadcasting (radio and television), it proves to be virtually the only meaning
of life.
A Critique
of the Political Economy of Advertising – especially from the point of
view of the necessarily growing importance of advertising for media production –
also contributes to the development of a Critique of the Political Economy of
the Media (Knoche 2002)[6].
In addition to the economic functions
of advertising and the media, the associated, equally necessary production of ideology[7] is a contribution
to the constitution of individual and societal consciousness. Ideology and the
behavioural patterns aligned with it are an essential element in developing a
theory of advertising in the media that is in line with reality.
The
focus of the analysis is on business advertising, i.e., all measures by
business enterprises that serve to promote the sale or profitable sale of commodities.
Included are therefore sales-promoting marketing measures, both in the
relationship between producers and distributors/traders as well as marketing
directed at consumers who are also seen as so-called “end users”. Also included
are advertising measures that become effective through the design of commodities
especially as branded articles (Haug 1972b). Finally,
there is an understanding of advertising that goes beyond the purely economic
functions and includes the societal-political functions of advertising.
In this
context, some indications of the economic and political (life) necessity of
advertising as the “elixir of life“ for the
safeguarding and continued existence of capitalism as an economic and social
system are given below. The mass, successful use of advertising as a
comprehensive sales promotion is thus seen as indispensable (Haug 1963) for the economic survival of individual business
enterprises and thus closely connected to the existence and further development
of capitalism.
2. The Necessity of Successful Advertising
"The very offspring of monopoly
capitalism, the inevitable by-product of the decline of price competition,
advertising constitutes as much an integral part of the system as the giant
corporation itself“ (Baran and Sweezy
1966, 122).
From a Political
Economy perspective, ”advertising consists of special
communication measures or strategies aimed at influencing the ‘advertised’
(target groups) in a way that serves the profit or dominative interests of the
advertisers” (Aufermann 1973, 544). This applies to
capitalist economic and societal systems in which the continuous production of
goods is indispensable for the desired accumulation of capital. What is
important here is that the capital advanced by the capital owner flows back in
full with a profit. However, this is not possible or
not possible to a sufficient extent without successful advertising (see figure
1).
Figure 1: Advertising as a means of avoiding existential crises of capitalism
In the
sense of securing the existence of individual enterprises and capitalism as a whole, it is also fundamentally necessary
that the mass of wage-dependent people who do not own capital be induced
through advertising to buy so many commodities that their wages are thus
consumed as completely as possible and thus the advance wage flows back in full
to the capital-accumulating commodity owners. This is also done, among other
things, by workers paying housing rents to the owners of capital as owners of
rented houses and flats. From the point of view of those who accumulate capital,
it is even advantageous if those who are wage-dependent buy more commodities
than they can afford, so that they must borrow from the sellers of commodities or
thus also contribute to the capital accumulation of banks. This kind of
profitable capital and wage reflux is of elementary importance for the
maintenance of the capital relation. Elementary here is, on the one hand, the
compulsion of those who do not own capital to sell their labour power
permanently and, on the other hand, the right of the owners of capital to use this
labour power profitably permanently.
The
profitable purchase (respectively sale) of commodities also has a positive
effect on the stabilisation of the capital relation insofar as the large majority of the population cannot build up
capital, or cannot do so to a sufficient extent, which would enable them not
to have to contribute to the capital accumulation of the capital owners as
dependent workers. The wage, which is too low in relation to commodity prices
and quantities, is usually completely consumed by the purchase of commodities,
mostly already by the purchase of the necessary means of subsistence (food,
health, housing). The stabilisation of the capital relation is also achieved to
a not inconsiderable extent by persuading people through advertising to invest
their small savings in entrepreneurial self-employment with the help of loans.
This often ends predictably after a more or less short time in bankruptcy and,
in the worst case, unemployment, due to the hopeless competition with the large
companies that dominate the markets.
Successfully
advertised small shareholders who make their saved money available to the
capital owners for their capital accumulation also reproduce the capital
relation in a special way, especially when their shares are systematically
devalued (cold expropriation)[8].
All these people are an ideal basis for the maintenance of the capital
relation, which is vital in a double sense (for capital owners and for those
who depend on them for work). It is rightly called “manipulation“
to “induce citizens to behave in a way that may well bring them
advantages as buyers but considerable disadvantages as producers: The
acceptance of the existing economic system through economic practice“ (Lay 1980,
201).
Conversely,
the relationships shown in figure 1 mean: If there was no or not enough successful
advertising,
· then
there would be no sufficient purchase of commodities,
· consequently,
no sufficient capital accumulation and return of the advanced capital,
· with
the outcome that individual companies enter crisis or crash,
· in the
worst case, there would be a crisis or crash of the capitalist economic and
societal system as a whole.
The starting point of the analysis is the development from the original
competitive capitalism with the greater importance of price and quality
competition to oligopoly or monopoly capitalism with the extensive replacement
of this competition by advertising competition (Baran and Sweezy
1966, 1967). In the course of the intensification of competition between
oligopolies (“monopolistic competition“), price and
quality competition would have a negative effect on all the companies involved,
so that attempts are made to secure markets and market shares that are as
stable as possible through (long-term) advertising strategies as well as to
achieve an expansion of consumption overall in the common interest. Advertising
thus becomes the “principal weapon of the competitive struggle” (Baran and Sweezy 1966, 116) with the aim of achieving a capital
accumulation appropriate for the oligopolists. Advertising also proves to be an
effective means of driving out capital-poor competitors, i.e., forcing them to
give up their business activities. According to Baran and Sweezy
(1966, 110-111), stimulating demand to create and expand product markets
thus becomes a leitmotif of economic and government policy. Thus, the
question is not whether demand should be stimulated by advertising, but how.
Consequently, there is a compulsion to advertise as a necessary means
to realise the desired accumulation of capital as the purpose and goal of
capitalist societies.
3. Why Capitalism Needs
Advertising
The
following phenomena can be identified as causes for the necessity and benefit
of advertising for capital accumulation (see figure 2):
· The
capitalist mode of production with its tendency towards the necessary increase
of labour productivity generates, in interaction with the prevailing regime of accumulation
and its tendency towards an inevitable over-accumulation, an increased pressure
of capital valorisation and accumulation.
Figure 2: Why capitalism needs advertising
· This
leads to an increased compulsion to produce commodities with a tendency to
overproduction, which increases the compulsion to sell commodities via the compulsion
to compete.
· Altogether,
this leads to an increased compulsion to advertise, which is seen as positive
for solving the capital utilisation problems produced by the aforementioned
constraints themselves.
· Here,
advertising is seen as an effective means of coping with the general
crisis-proneness of capital accumulation and is visibly used successfully at
great expense.
An
essential peculiarity of the capitalist regime of accumulation consists in the
fact that for the permanent realisation of capital accumulation, in the
interest of the owners of capital, the higher the already accumulated capital,
the more must be permanently produced and sold. Therefore – largely without
regard to a corresponding societal demand – mass production and sales must be
incessantly carried out. This is also necessary, because only mass production
with high labour productivity produces the necessary unit cost regression.
There is therefore a permanent compulsion for the mass production and
sale of commodities far beyond the real societal demand. In this context,
advertising is a necessary means to enable the sale of all these products
through effective stimulation and thus also to accelerate the return of the
capital advanced plus profit.
4. Economic and Ideological Functions
of Advertising
“Advertising, as an expression of the immanent laws of capitalist
commodity production, can only be grasped in its entirety if it is understood
that it is an economic instrument that fulfils its task in the reproduction
process of capital by way of ideological influence. The economic side must
therefore never be separated from the ideological side and vice versa, [..] and
any analysis that turns exclusively to one of the inseparably linked sides as
the object of investigation must ultimately fall short“ (Lindner
1977, 144).
Four
closely related types of necessary advertising can be distinguished
according to their respective main economic-ideological objectives and
functions (see figure 3). In their interaction, they by no means serve the
purpose of market transparency, as is continuously claimed by advertisers. On
the contrary: the large companies, which mainly advertise at immense expense,
achieve their goals precisely by creating the most confusing possible lack of
transparency of the market in their own interest – primarily through successful
brand advertising. The brand orientations built up with great advertising efforts
are supposed to be decisive for consumers’ buying behaviour.
Figure 3: Types of advertising that are necessary for capitalism
4.1. Product Advertising
Special
product advertising is part of brand advertising, i.e., it is also a means of
competition between individual capitals. Particularly in largely saturated
product markets, it has the special function of forcing the process of
artificial product obsolescence (on the central function of “planned
obsolescence” Knoche 2005, 51-57), which is important
for the successful accumulation of capital, into the consciousness of
buyers/consumers with the help of the positively connoted concept of innovation
and to induce them to make corresponding purchases (Baran and Sweezy 1967, 129-131). This clearly shows that the owners
of capital are only interested in consumption as the use or consumption of a
commodity to a very limited extent, but are
fundamentally interested in the sale of the commodity. Advertising must be used
to achieve – and empirical evidence shows that this is achieved to a large
extent – that potential buyers regard their purchased, still usable commodities
as obsolete and therefore buy new commodities of the same product type
(replacement purchases), although these products would still be usable for a
long time. However, this central type of advertising is not only used for the
competition between the individual capitals within a sector but also across
sector boundaries. A prerequisite for successful innovation advertising (also
for new media and media techniques, see Knoche 2005)
is, among other things, that on the level of general consumer advertising, “the
new”, “the fashionable”, “the trendy”, “the hip”, and hipster commodities are
generally anchored as positive images in the consciousness of consumers.
4.2. Brand Advertising
Special
brand advertising is a particularly important means in the competition between individual
capitals. As is well known, brand advertising is a central means in the
competition for selling commodities to consumers and, as a
consequence, also in the cut-throat competition, which is expressed in a
progressive increase of industry-wide concentration levels. In this respect, it
is not surprising that, due to the elementary importance of brand advertising
strategies for the sale of commodities, media are also increasingly being
situated as brands and advertised accordingly (Siegert
2001).
4.3. Industry Advertising
Special advertising that serves the common goal of the capital owners of an
entire industry that contains all companies producing commodities of a certain
type. The industry that uses such advertising stands in competition with all
other more or less related industries, to secure
enough sales of commodities in each case so that the competitive struggles
within the respective industry do not have a profit-reducing effect. The goal
of industry advertising is that the capitalists who are active in a particular industry
as a whole can continue to accumulate capital
successfully. Basically, all industries compete with all others in the sense of
a competitive struggle between the particular capital valorisation
interests of capital fractions. Joint industry advertising also promotes the
concentration of the economy insofar as, for example, other industries as a whole are more or less crowded out.
For the
car industry, for example, there is a common
interest in getting people to buy cars in competition with the use of
public transport, planes, ships, bicycles, etc. But there is also another
common interest to promote the purchase of cars, for example, in competition
with all other commodities (clothes, food, etc.), especially since the purchase
of cars in a pronounced way hinders the purchase of other commodities as a result of the additional necessary petrol purchases,
maintenance work, repairs, insurances, and replacement purchases. The special
sectoral advertising of the car producers is also aimed at obliging the state
to expand the road networks.
4.4. Consumer Advertising
Consumer
advertising is advertising that uses various ideological justifications to present consumption in all its forms –
and capitalism in a broader sense – as positive for consumers, for the economy
and thus for the common good. This type of advertising can be described as ideological
because it works with justifications that pretend to be in the general interest
of the general public, while at the same time
concealing the particular interest of the owners of capital to accumulate ever
more capital and sell ever more commodities. Consumption is presented as the
realisation of freedom and equality of individuals and as a sign of a good and
just society. General consumer advertising thus also serves to legitimise
capitalism as the best possible economic system and society. Consumer
advertising is therefore about advertising in the service of the interests of
total capital in competition with other possible interest groups in society
(for example, wage-dependent workers). Consumer advertising is about the systemic
competition of capitalism with other possible economic and societal systems. In
this respect, capitalist advertising for commodities also generally acts as
propaganda for capitalist commodity production or capitalism as the best
possible economic system and society (Haug 1972a, 137)[9].
The
ideological character of advertising is expressed in all types of advertising
(special product advertising, brand advertising, industry advertising). But
ideology is primarily disseminated in general “image advertising”, above all
via the media as public relations and via editorial or programme contributions.
It is recognisable that “the programs of the mass media, even in their non-commercial
portions, stimulate “consumption” and channel “it into certain patterns”
(Habermas 1991, 191-192; German version: Habermas 1962, 210).
Here we
can already see how important it is for the owners of capital that the mass
media function as advertising media whose owners have an equally strong
interest in general consumer advertising. The editorial contributions/programmes
that generally advertise consumption can thus be seen on the one hand as a free
service provided by the mass media in the interest of all capital owners. On
the other hand, it can also be assumed that the payment for only seemingly free
services is included in the often astonishingly high and excessive advertising
prices. The advertisers therefore pay not only for the labelled advertising but
also for the advertising editorial and programming environment. For this
purpose, advertising in the form of sponsoring is also a much
used means of payment. Advertising thus contributes in many ways to the “subsidizing
of the ideological media” (Horkheimer and Adorno 2002, 132).
In
practice, a unity of the economic and the ideological is clearly recognisable.
Thus “it cannot be overlooked that advertising as a societal phenomenon does
not consist of the individual advertising communication, but of the totality of
the advertising communications of all individual advertisers" (Lindner
1977, 145). Advertising for special commodities is therefore always also
advertising for the commodity form of the products themselves, in that it makes
a universal purchasability of the advertised abundance and variety of commodities
appear as something natural, in principle and generally accessible to everyone
in the same way: “the satisfaction of needs in commodity form appears as the satisfaction
of needs par excellence” (Paris 1972b, 26).
5. The (Re)Flow of Capital and Capital Accumulation by the Means of Advertising and Commodity Sales
“The average citizen, who is both a worker and a consumer, is seized by
his fear of losing the job that means his social existence; the fear of crisis
brings him close to his consumer duty. [...] The unspoken utopia of the ’sociology
of prosperity’ is the smooth exploitation of consumers in the sense of the
smooth circulation and multiplication of capital. King Customer himself becomes
a commodity” (Horn 1972, 203).
Figure 4: Capital (re)flow and capital accumulation
through advertising and commodity sales
Advertising
is generally always necessary in the sense of a kind of collective
advertising of co-ordinated or (partly) competing advertising measures in
the same way for the realisation of the individual capital accumulation of
different individual capitals. Advertising is also necessary for the tax
maximisation of the state, a considerable part of which benefits the individual
capitals in the form of all kinds of direct and indirect subsidies. This joint
advertising serves the fundamentally common capital valorisation interests of various
capital fractions, to whose capital accumulation the commodity buyers
ultimately contribute directly or indirectly (see figure 4):
1. The capital
owners of commodity production do not really use their capital as their (sunk)
cost, as is always the impression. Rather, they advance capital through the
purchase of means of production, raw materials, and the purchase of the
commodity labour power, which is euphemistically called (fair) wages. In
addition, interest on loans is usually advanced. All the capital referred to as
costs is not lost capital such as the consumption of wages as food costs for
the dependent workers, but it is replaced again by the sale of the commodities
and even increased.
2. The
producers of commodities indeed have to pay a purchase
price to the owners of capital in the industries that create means of
production and resources, as well as to the banks, which then reimburse them
for their costs plus profit, i.e., an increase in capital. However, this is not
a fundamental problem for the owners of capital insofar as these expenses are
completely reimbursed by the buyers of commodities.
3. In
contrast, the workers, as immediate producers, do not own the products they
produce, so they cannot sell them to the capital owner at a profitable market
price. These products temporarily become the property of the capital owners
until they are sold to consumers. The owners of capital can sell commodities
for the purpose of increasing their invested capital.
4. In order to realise the sale successfully, the capital
owners of commodity production must also buy advertising from the capital
owners of advertising agencies, this too at a price that brings them the
replacement of the capital advanced and its increase. Advertising is on the one
hand directed at the potential buyers of commodities, but on the other hand also
at the capital owners of distribution (merchant’s capital), who in turn have to advertise to the end consumers.
5. The
decisive thing now is that the buyers have to pay a
profit price with their purchases of commodities, which ensures that all
capital owners involved in the production and distribution and advertising of
the respective commodities get back the capital advanced plus a surplus. The
buyers of commodities, as so-called end consumers, have to
also pay the value-added tax to the state, which is included in the price of
the commodities. In the end, it is the buyers of commodities who have to pay the value-added tax, while the owners of capital
have the possibility of offsetting the value-added tax and passing it on to the
final consumer.
Advertising,
in addition to other socialisation mechanisms, usually successfully contributes
to commodity buyers acting blatantly against their own interests and thus even
contributes to widening the gap between capital owners and non-capital owners,
between the rich and the poor, and between the powerful and the dependent.
6. The Functional Relationship between the (Advertising) Industry and Media Companies
“The mass media are primarily present as an advertising medium because certain
sectors of industry prefer artificial product differentiation and image
advertising to price and quality competition, to the detriment of the consumer”
(Prokop 2000,141)
The
functional relationship between the advertising industry and media companies is
determined by the fact that the media are extremely willingly made available as
advertising media in their own interest (source of financing), but also in the
overriding (self-)interest of securing capitalism as an economic and societal
system[10].
In this respect, media companies equally serve their own capital accumulation
interest[11] and likewise that of the
entire advertising economy. This is done in the co-ordination of paid
advertising, processing of free PR material and co-ordinated (sponsored)
journalistic/programme contributions (see figure 5). Advertising is thus also a
necessary “elixir of life” for media companies’ capital accumulation in several
respects: in the form of necessary advertising revenue from advertising
orders from business and the state, as well as a necessary advertising
medium for the sale (obtaining coverage) of media products as commodities.
Finally, they function as advertising media for the sale of consumer goods
and services as commodities as well as for the ideological advertising measures
of collective capital (capital as totality) and the state.
Figure 5: The (advertising) industry and media companies
Consequently,
non-advertising media production also willingly and intensively serves the
generic business for collective capital (to which media capital also belongs)
in the sense of maintaining good business relations. Various forms and contents
of media production are also used for parties and the state in the fundamental
interest of all owners of capital in legitimising capitalism, protecting
domination, maintaining a general climate of consumption, and spreading
ideologies. In addition, media production fulfils to a considerable extent the
function of reproducing the labour force in the interest of the owners of
capital by contributing to the regeneration, qualification, and repair of labour
power. The private-sector media enterprises and, similarly, the public
broadcasting corporations take over here as a basic capitalist service “in the
sense of industrial, late-capitalist planning and demand management, the task
of general and product-specific conditioning of the recipients into consumers (this
also applies to the political sphere and thus generally characterises the
socialisation effect of the media)” (Hennig 1972, 36).
In the course of the global expansion of the privatisation –
and thus capitalisation and commercialisation – of the media industry (Knoche 1999, 2001, 2016, 2021), an intensification of the real
subsumption, so named after Marx (1969, 45-64; 1962 [1867, 1890],
1023-1038), of the public sphere under capital as well, via a product and
advertising context of the media network, has become effective. Real
subsumption means ”that hitherto relatively autonomous domains are integrated
into the valorisation context and that the use-values, information, and
ideologies produced in this context are directly employed to stabilize the
system of rule” (Negt and Kluge 1993, 178; German
version: Negt and Klugt
1972, 297) In this respect, no independent economic public sphere was developed
as an advertising public sphere, but the journalistic representation of privileged
economic private interests in the media was always linked to political
interests[12]. Media are consequently
indispensable for “the ideological stabilisation of the framework conditions of
the capitalist economy” (Aufermann 1973, 558), i.e.,
for the ideological reproduction of capitalist relations of production and forms
of intercourse.
7. Summary: Functions and Consequences of Successful Advertising
“In principle, one must assume that every kind of advertising is done
with manipulative intent. Hardly any company will advertise its products with
philanthropic intentions, but always in order to
change buyer behaviour for its own benefit. But that means manipulation”[13]
(Lay 1980, 200).
From
the perspective of a Critique of the Political Economy of the Media, this work has
characterised advertising in its various manifestations as a fundamentally necessary ”elixir of life” for the realisation of the
accumulation of capital by individual owners of capital, including media
companies, and the safeguarding of capitalism as an economic and societal
system. Based on specific capitalist commodity production – intensified in the
current stage of global oligopoly or monopoly capitalism – advertising
functions as an indispensable means of profit realisation, since “the
continuous realisation of the commodity capital produced into fungible money
capital is a basic condition for the relatively crisis-free functioning of the
system” (Paris 1972a, 58). Advertising contributes to the acceleration and thus
to the important temporal shortening of the capital accumulation process and,
beyond that, as has been shown, to the consolidation of the general conditions
of reproduction and accumulation (“capital relation”) of capitalism.
These
are the theoretical-practical starting points for a fundamental
political-economic critique of advertising and the function of the media as
advertising media. This critique attempts to recognise the largely negative
contexts of function and effect of all-encompassing advertising for a large
part of individuals and society as largely inevitable from the necessary
functions for the accumulation of capital by individual owners of capital. In
this way, advertising and the media do not become the focus of a primarily
moralising critique and outrage about the excesses of advertising as avoidable
exceptions, as is the case with the criticism of manipulation as “cultural
criticism from the left and from the right – and from the centre” (Haug 1980, 10). In the approach I take, the critique of
advertising is not artistic critique[14]
, which complains about the low level or the stultifying effect of advertising.
Rather, the critique of advertising should be a social and societal critique
where the function and consequences of advertising are understood and explained
as essential elements in the context of the function, effect, and development
of the prevailing economic and societal system. In this way, it is not the
phenomenon of advertising that becomes the focus of critique, but the dominant
interest in capital accumulation that necessarily produces advertising and its
corresponding consequences.
In
conclusion, based on a Critique of the Political Economy of the Media, the main
functions and consequences of successful advertising mentioned in figure 6 can
be summarised as follows:
Figure 6: The functions and consequences of
successful advertising
Corresponding
to the aforementioned positive economic function of
advertising concerning the promotion of individual capital accumulation, the prevention of overproduction,
over-accumulation and capital valorisation problems can be named as
advertising’s preventive functions. Since
advertising especially fulfils competitive functions, it contributes to the
accelerated progress of worldwide
capital and market concentration. Due to the process of capital accumulation
accelerated by advertising, the gap between the rich and the poor and the
powerful and the dependent is visibly widened on a gigantic scale worldwide. On
the level of capitalism as an economic and societal system, advertising thus
contributes economically and ideologically
to the stabilisation of
the systemic foundations of capitalist societies: the capital-labour
relationship, the regime of accumulation, the economic, societal, and political
(advertising) functions of the media.
This
contribution was written as an attempt to contribute to the theoretical
foundations of a Critique of the Political Economy of the Media and especially
of advertising, in the field of Media and Communication Studies with a
critical-enlightenment impetus. What is relevant here is a point that Wolfgang
Fritz Haug already problematised self-critically in
1980:
“Not that enlightenment is not necessary! But it is not sufficient. A
one-sided cognitive orientation perhaps strengthens unhappy consciousness but
does not necessarily strengthen the ability to act” (Haug
1980, 12).
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Acknowledgement:
This
article was first published in German:
Manfred Knoche. 2005. Werbung
– ein notwendiges „Lebenselixier“
für den Kapitalismus: Zur
Kritik der politischen Ökonomie der Werbung. In Theorie und Praxis der Werbung
in den Massenmedien, edited by Wolfgang Seufert
and Jörg Müller-Lietzkow,
239-255. Baden-Baden: Nomos.
Translated and published with permission by Nomos-Verlag.
The paper was updated and translated by Christian Fuchs and Manfred Knoche.
About the Author:
Manfred Knoche
is Professor Emeritus of Communication Studies with a
focus on Media Economics at the University of Salzburg in Austria. He studied
journalism, sociology, political science and economics at the University of
Mainz and the Free University of Berlin. He obtained his PhD (1978) and
defended his habilitation (1981) at the Free
University of Berlin. He was a research assistant in the years 1974-1979 and
assistant professor for communications politics in Berlin in the years
1979-1983. From 1983 to 1994, he was Professor of Media and Communication
Science at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium, where he was also the
director of the Centre for Mass Communications Research. From 1994-2009 he held
the chair professorship in media economics at the University of Salzburg in
Austria, where he was Director of the Media Economics Group at the Department
of empirical Media and Communication Studies. He chaired the German Association
for Media and Communication Studies’ (DGPuK) Media
Economics-section. He is the author of many publications on the Critique of the
Political Economy of the Media. His work has especially focused on the critique
of the political economy of media concentration and the media industry’s
structural transformations.
http://www.medienoekonomie.at,
https://www.kowi-salzburg.at/team/manfred-knoche/
https://at.linkedin.com/in/prof-dr-manfred-knoche-3b77b469
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7490-5967
Twitter: @Medoek
Wikipedia: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manfred_Knoche