Agency in the Market of Loyalties
Today's Question: In several of the books we've read so far, we have found the hope or fear that new communication technologies challenge national borders or that they create new conditions for international unity (e.g., they will "bring the whole world together" or make place irrelevant). The Price book is an extended analysis of this one idea. Throughout the book Price compares and contrasts the consequences of specific technologies (satellite radio, AM radio, shortwave radio, the Internet, television, newspapers, books, etc.) for transnational migration, identity formation, international relations, and domestic politics. There are several examples in each chapter from specific places. Speaking generally, where is the agency (meaning: the means of action) in Price's accounts? In other words, is there an account of causation here, and if so, what is it? What leads to the consequences identified here, and what would we need to change to obtain different consequences?
I feel obligated to remark on the ramifications of Price's work in Media and Sovereignty and the events that are currently unfolding in Iran and Britain concerning the detained British sailors and marines. We are witnessing the intersection of traditional concept of national sovereignty in terms of a nation state's right to protect and guard its borders and territorial waters, with the political assertion of sovereignty played out on an international level through the broadcasting the "confession" of the British marines of violating Iran's territorial waters some six times. I am using quotation marks not to assign any kind of truth value to the statements as being an admission of guilt, but to use the tone that is expressed in much of the western media reports on the validity of these statements. (Examples to be found at CNN, The BBC, CBS News, and of course, the "fair and balanced" Fox News. It is also interesting to see how other western media are reporting this story and how they are dealing with the "confessions". (The CBC, ABC, Der Spiegel On Line with a particularly biting commentary from Monty Python's Terry Jones in the Guardian)
While the specific area of the territorial waters has been under dispute for some time, the growing issue is the actual broadcast images and video of the detained sailors /marines internationally directly against the terms of the Geneva Convention concerning the rights and treatment of prisoners of war, yet as many political observers and cartoonists have noted, the United States seems to no longer adhere to these standards in the international "War on Terrorism". (See image below) Furthermore, President Bush is furthering his own political "axis of evil" agenda by referring to the detained sailors as "hostages- which conjures a host of images concerning the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis that ultimately cost Jimmy Carter the Presidency of the United States. [Speculation has it that this hostage crisis was guided and resolved because of Ronald Regan's secret deal to sell arms for hostages (aka Iran-Contra Affair).]
As for the question of agency within Price's Media and Sovereignty it appears to me that Price does his utmost to avoid assigning any real agency to any particular actor, be they nation states, NGO's, multinational corporations, or perhaps the most frustrating vague terminology in the entire work, "citizen consumers". I felt as if Price wanted to issue some powerful warnings and testimonials about the current trends in the monopolization of media power, but ultimately, he seems to only offer tepid statements such as "... there are assertions of national identity in the interstices of commercials in their depiction of idealized home life, opportunities to travel, or of a certain idea of traditional family values. "Free and independent media," because of their dependence upon advertising, alter citizen priorities as between the state and consumerism". (p 38) His introduction of the concept of a "market of loyalties" seems to be useful in discussing the shifting developments of communication technology and concepts of statehood and national sovereignty, yet I feel particularly disturbed by its implications and its utter abandonment of the concept of the "marketplace of ideas". I believe that the adornment of the market place of ideas and the construction of a market of loyalties are direct result of the interdependence and mutually beneficial relationships that multinational corporations, media monopolies and nation states have with one another. Reducing citizenship to consumerism is one of the deep implications that this strange, new market holds, yet Price avoid talking about the inherently hegemonic nature that the "Market of Loyalties" encourages and breeds. We may indeed be reduced to mere consumers instead of citizens, but that title still provides us with a certain level of economic agency that Price does not seem to admit. Commercial boycotts are effective ways of expressing social and political desires, and are unfortunately often more effective in providing real change than voting in civic elections.
Indeed, while the concept of the marketplace of loyalties may be on the rise in the brave new world of multinational media conglomeration, but it ultimately appears that Brand America is not selling like it used to.
