Ghost in the Wire

Having just finished the revisions to my chapter for the rhetoric and materiality collection, a chapter entitled "Shades of Derrida: Materiality as the Mediation of Differance," I have been thinking a bit about propaganda, and how it operates. I'll write a few more posts on this eventually, hence the preemptive number assignation, but for now, let me include a brief snippet from the paper regarding the mimetic character of propaganda:

"[My focus on mimesis as a critical substitute for representation] induces some tension with other ways of thinking materiality, especially ways that rely fundamentally on a logic of representation. Class relations, for example, are always just that, relational, and thus always the subject of a representational field and an intersubjective assessment of the differences within that field. To speak of anything like an objective relation or an identity requires a prior ontological submission to representation, one that I believe is both dangerous and heuristically impoverished. Discussions of propaganda probably offer the easiest evidence of the problem facing such a critical perspective, and why it is I think a greater appreciation for the theatricality of mediation — of mimesis — can enhance critical efforts. Fox News, for example, is without doubt a reality-challenged mouthpiece for the Republican party, but it gains the progressive critic little to expose the obvious lack of factual verisimilitude in its coverage nor does it substantively help the media critic to explain away Fox's rhetorical appeal by asserting that propaganda operates by convincing people that they aren't actually seeing propaganda [I'm referring fairly explicitly to Bob McChesney's comments in OutFoxed and elsewhere]. For either critical approach to seem remotely coherent, one must believe implicitly in either the sheer stupidity or the overwhelming and inexplicable avarice of Fox's viewing audience, a persona that hardly assists leftists interested in changing the Fox viewer's political imaginary and that hardly bodes well for those who argue for substantive improvements in the production quality of our news media. Such huffing and puffing may have its uses, to be sure, but it ultimately flounders against the walls of those brick houses ostensibly sullying the rhetorical landscape.

A mimetic understanding offers a much more robust insight into the operations of televisual propaganda. News networks do not gain adherents by properly representing the world, as is, nor by “tricking” the populace into thinking exactly that, but rather the tele-communing power of the modern news/media networks rests in their ability to sell themselves as the proper space in which the public can see themselves seeing the world. This provides at least a reasonable explanation for the inane strategy by which Fox News repeats, ad nauseum, that its coverage is “fair and balanced”—it isn't a question of fooling anyone into thinking that Fox News is objective, but rather the act of inviting the conservative portion of the public to view themselves as the ones who are fair and balanced. It is this theatrical staging, this invitational mimicry, that explains the popularity and success of Fox News. Trying to assess and understand its success by analyzing its representational practices misses the mark—and the medium—entirely."

So functionally, propaganda operates via an invitational identification, one properly mimetic in character, and not representational. That's my argument in a nutshell, I think. There are some implications for the related concepts of ideology and the political imaginary (check out Mark Madsen's recent posts on Charles Taylor), and I think that my argument may require a more sustained investigation. For now, comments and criticism are helpful, so feel free to add some.