Looking at Political Economy of Communication from the Perspective of Dallas W. Smythe

Abstract

Dallas W. Smythe is recognized as one of the founders of the political economy approach to communication. Smythe shaped to the political economy of communication with his studies. However, in recent years, studies about social media and labor have referred to Smythe. He used “audience commodity” for the television audience. This notion has been one of the notion to recognize social media users. Smythe’s thoughts are not limited to the audience commodity. Smythe determined that media organizations produce consumers. According to Smythe, there is an important relationship between media and monopoly capitalism. As Smythe said, one of the important issues is that media organizations sell audiences to advertisers. Smythe remarked the advertisers not purchase only place and time, the advertisers purchase the audience and he pointed out the audience to be created by media organizations. One of the most important Smythe’s notion is the consciousness industry. According to Smythe, the consciousness industry involves information sectors and the consumer goods industry. He said, “every commodity is in a sense a teaching machine”. Smythe focused consciousness industry as a productive force.

Keywords

• political economy of communication
• dallas smythe
• audience commodity
• political economy of media
• consciousness industry