Communication as ... Spectacle
Many culture critics suggest that we live in a “society of spectacle.” Indeed, spectacle seems an appropriate metaphor for exploring communication in a visual, digital culture that relies more on surface appearances than on the substance of rational argument or the intensity of emotional engagement. Guy Debord defines spectacle as “ a social relationship between people that as mediated by image” (1967/1999, p. 12). Spectacle acknowledges the fast-forward culture in which we live. It reminds us that not all communication is thoughtful, precise, and engaged. In fact, most of it is just opposite we hurtle through our multimedia universe absorbing image and information at a glance, scarcely able to reflect on what we see and hear.
One by product of framing communication spectacle, however is that audiences tend to be figured as passive viewers of the spectacle; they absorb but do not engange. Consider again our hypothetical photograph. From the point of view of spectacle, the photograph is not an image of poverty but an image of poverty; that is, the metaphor of spectacle turns our attention away from materialty. The photograph in this view becomes a constructed set of social relationship displayed through the medium of photography; the experience of poverty is replaced by its image. No longer a material condition, the poverty of the unemployed men leaves viewer of the photograph with nothing to do but watch. As Debord observes (eerily echoing Dewey) spectacle, “is the opposite of dialogue” (p, 17). One problem with the metaphor os spectacle, than, is it disempowers the audience for communication. It constructs audiences as passive or helpless in the wake of omnipresent, everciculating messages.
The metaphor of spectacle itself is not necessarily iconophobic. In fact, it might even be viewed as idolatrous, or uncritically accepting of all image; after all, they are “only” representation, nothing to be afraid of. But framing communication in terms of spectacles promotes iconophobic because the metaphor serves as foil for those who wish to reveal the spectacle inadequacy. If we frame communication as spectacle, we are inevitably left with two uncofortable choices. Either we uncritically embrace the spectacle, its surface represetantions, and the audience’s passive role, or we step outside the metaphor entirely to critique it. Either way, the metaphor of apectacle offers little to an econophilic communication theory of the visual.
One by product of framing communication spectacle, however is that audiences tend to be figured as passive viewers of the spectacle; they absorb but do not engange. Consider again our hypothetical photograph. From the point of view of spectacle, the photograph is not an image of poverty but an image of poverty; that is, the metaphor of spectacle turns our attention away from materialty. The photograph in this view becomes a constructed set of social relationship displayed through the medium of photography; the experience of poverty is replaced by its image. No longer a material condition, the poverty of the unemployed men leaves viewer of the photograph with nothing to do but watch. As Debord observes (eerily echoing Dewey) spectacle, “is the opposite of dialogue” (p, 17). One problem with the metaphor os spectacle, than, is it disempowers the audience for communication. It constructs audiences as passive or helpless in the wake of omnipresent, everciculating messages.
The metaphor of spectacle itself is not necessarily iconophobic. In fact, it might even be viewed as idolatrous, or uncritically accepting of all image; after all, they are “only” representation, nothing to be afraid of. But framing communication in terms of spectacles promotes iconophobic because the metaphor serves as foil for those who wish to reveal the spectacle inadequacy. If we frame communication as spectacle, we are inevitably left with two uncofortable choices. Either we uncritically embrace the spectacle, its surface represetantions, and the audience’s passive role, or we step outside the metaphor entirely to critique it. Either way, the metaphor of apectacle offers little to an econophilic communication theory of the visual.
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Communication as ... Spectacle
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