Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Murdoch Ideology

Murdoch may block Google searches


The link above is a BBC article on media tycoon Rupert Murdoch's plans to revitalize News Corp. in light the global financial downturn. Murdoch's plans include starting to charge for news content which was initially free on the web as well as barring search engines such as Google from displaying headlines and text from articles as search results.

The two, particularly the latter, are so problematic to me that, at best they can be seen as a neoliberal bourgeoisie appropriation of new technical processes as means of capitalist 'production.' However, "The modern concept of information is explicitly subordinated to the technical demands of communication engineering, and more specifically to 'line' or 'channel (12)'" Thus, the content, or meaning (and perhaps, by some extension, value), takes second place to the form of the message itself. I believe this new emphasis on the line or medium complicated Murdoch's aim. Even in late capitalism, there is still a concept of the bourgeoisie profitting off owning owning the means of production, however, in this case although News Corp. certainly owns memory on servers, the actual means of 'production' or dissemination of information is not simply 'owned' by any agent.

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