政治经济学批判:广告传播研究的另类视角

广告以及与此相关的生产活动被一种宏观的政治和经济力量控制着,因此,政治经济学分析是广告传播研究的重要理论取向.这种理论取向遵循的并非是自由主义的政治经济学,而是批判的政治经济学.和前者不同,批判的政治经济学认为是营销建构了需求,社会关系支撑了市场活动,组织结构控制了经济过程.广告传播的政治经济学批判的研究对象是权力关系制约下的广告文化产品的生产、流通与消费,它的研究范畴以权力为核心,包括广告运作的社会机制和社会运作的广告机制两个方面.批判政治经济学为广告传播研究提供了一种坚持以整体社会理论、历史主义观点和社会平等价值观为主线的研究方法.

Plutonomic Criticism: A Different Viewpoint of Advertising Communication Study

Advertising together with its correlated productive activities is controlled by a macroscopical political and economical power.Social politics,structure of economical power as well as the resource distribution conditioned by them determine the organization and the vocational configuration of the advertising industry so as to further influence the production of ideological contents.Therefore,the study objects of the plutonomic criticism of advertising communication include not only the sign forms,but the relationships between these sign forms and the detailed and socially-stipulated background and process in history.The relationships here mainly refer to the interactions between advertising and the power structures of politics and economy.To make the study of plutonomic criticism of advertising communication,a conformable thinking is needed;the thinking manner of correlation and formation is applied;the study is focused on the structure of political economy,ideology,the system of cultural values and the power management;attention is paid to the interactive relationship between the market mechanism(economical power),the state machinery(political power) and the communication system(knowledge and information power) in the process of the production and the circulation of the advertising communication products;advertising communication and social commercialization as well as their influences on the cultural and social aspects are analyzed.The study orientation of plutonomic criticism of advertising communication is historical,which means that advertising cultural products must be analyzed in light of the historical conditions that produce them.In other words,the analysis of plutonomic criticism of advertising communication closely relates to four major historical processes,namely,the development of advertising media,the vicissitudes of enterprises,commercialization,and the change of the government's role and regulation.The plutonomic criticism of advertising communication holds morality in great account.Advertising communication is generally only concerned with such technical problems as the communicative efficiency,but ignores such basic moral problems as justice,equality and public welfare,so that the market center and the public center are not well-balanced.It is mainly reflected in(1) advertising takes people as consumers rather than citizens;as a result,it is only concerned with people's acquisition of information instead of freedom;((2) throughout) the world advertising vigorously advocates the culture of consumerism,disregarding the influence on the eco-environment;(3) advertising widens the gap between those who have purchasing power and those who have not;(4) the omnipresent advertising trespasses public space;(5) advertising manipulates children;(6) advertising constructs the social gender;(7) for marketing purposes,advertising collects personal information on a large scale and thus violates persons' rights to privacy;(8) international advertising destroys the independence of the traditional culture of the target country;(9) advertising dominates the production of the media content;and(10) the trend of the media concentration based on the advertising profits reduces the diversity of people's choices.