Showing posts with label Newspapers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Newspapers. Show all posts
Newspapers as ambient prose
Ambient music is music that rewards attention but does not demand it. In fanciful moments I have wondered whether there is such a thing as ambient prose. I think there is. For no good reason I have been watching people read on the bus to work (carefully, mind you), in particular the speed with which they get through a magazine or newspaper. Not long ago I saw a man get from the front to the back of the Metro in (by my reckoning) under two minutes.
This is a function of mass literacy combined with a lack of an outlet for it. The printed word is a hot medium, requiring attention and patience, encouraging detached and sequential logic. This clearly does not mesh with the reality of life for half-sleeply Londoners on their way to work. There is a problem if newspapers are experienced not as a collection of stories supported by facts but a series of flickering impressions, over in two minutes.
Newspapers were born of bourgeois culture, between the town cryer and the radio station. The medium is shaped by the needs and prejudices of the bourgeoisie (who, amongst other things, have ample time to sit and read). The existence of a socialist newspaper is an example of the working class beginning to master bourgeois culture.
If newspapers cannot fulfil what's considered to be their function, bringing current affairs to the general population, it's time they were replaced (along with the social relations that gave rise to them). Of course that's easier said than done.
This is a function of mass literacy combined with a lack of an outlet for it. The printed word is a hot medium, requiring attention and patience, encouraging detached and sequential logic. This clearly does not mesh with the reality of life for half-sleeply Londoners on their way to work. There is a problem if newspapers are experienced not as a collection of stories supported by facts but a series of flickering impressions, over in two minutes.
Newspapers were born of bourgeois culture, between the town cryer and the radio station. The medium is shaped by the needs and prejudices of the bourgeoisie (who, amongst other things, have ample time to sit and read). The existence of a socialist newspaper is an example of the working class beginning to master bourgeois culture.
If newspapers cannot fulfil what's considered to be their function, bringing current affairs to the general population, it's time they were replaced (along with the social relations that gave rise to them). Of course that's easier said than done.
In praise of tired, old routines
Let's get to the point, I'm talking about the making and selling of newspapers. Two things must be said, I think.
(1) Nobody, but nobody, no meaningful actor on the British left has put out a serious document/thesis/whatever arguing that newspapers are all and the internet is nothing and it shall be that way forever, amen. For one thing, if you could find such a document, right now, it would be, yup, on the internet.
No one hypes newspapers. People do hype the internet. At the basic mainstream level people hype the internet as a way of denying agency. The Arab people did not make the revolution, Facebook did. It's cobblers.
No one should pretend there's some absolutist orthodoxy about paper sales they're bravely railing against. There isn't.
(2) The distributing printed word is time consuming, energy consuming and expensive. When people suggest "you're just interested in selling papers" I tend to reply, "of course I'm not. I'd rather someone else did this for me, but that's not going to happen". What can having a printed paper do for you? I am in a London branch of the SWP, there are two branches in my borough. In our branch we have one street sale, usually on a Saturday, two regular workplace sales and a few more irregular ones. In the course of organising these sales the branch brings a dozen to two dozen people into activity. The basic propagandism of a street sale is not everything, but it should not be underestimated. Amongst other things, the day-to-day opportunities for making Bolshevism, even in unionised workplaces, are slim. The sale is a chance to put your ideas to some kind of a test.
In the course of regular, hum-drum activity, like meetings and sales, the branch can accurately estimate who can be counted on, who can do what and to what likely effect. I'd say there are 20-30 people regularly active in this branch during an average month, modest compared to our ultimate ambition but hey-ho... We can only know this because we ask people to complete regular, horrible, abstract drudgery, actual physical tasks.
The internet can't do this.
(1) Nobody, but nobody, no meaningful actor on the British left has put out a serious document/thesis/whatever arguing that newspapers are all and the internet is nothing and it shall be that way forever, amen. For one thing, if you could find such a document, right now, it would be, yup, on the internet.
No one hypes newspapers. People do hype the internet. At the basic mainstream level people hype the internet as a way of denying agency. The Arab people did not make the revolution, Facebook did. It's cobblers.
No one should pretend there's some absolutist orthodoxy about paper sales they're bravely railing against. There isn't.
(2) The distributing printed word is time consuming, energy consuming and expensive. When people suggest "you're just interested in selling papers" I tend to reply, "of course I'm not. I'd rather someone else did this for me, but that's not going to happen". What can having a printed paper do for you? I am in a London branch of the SWP, there are two branches in my borough. In our branch we have one street sale, usually on a Saturday, two regular workplace sales and a few more irregular ones. In the course of organising these sales the branch brings a dozen to two dozen people into activity. The basic propagandism of a street sale is not everything, but it should not be underestimated. Amongst other things, the day-to-day opportunities for making Bolshevism, even in unionised workplaces, are slim. The sale is a chance to put your ideas to some kind of a test.
In the course of regular, hum-drum activity, like meetings and sales, the branch can accurately estimate who can be counted on, who can do what and to what likely effect. I'd say there are 20-30 people regularly active in this branch during an average month, modest compared to our ultimate ambition but hey-ho... We can only know this because we ask people to complete regular, horrible, abstract drudgery, actual physical tasks.
The internet can't do this.
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