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Mediation in Marxist theory ((ドイツ語:Vermittlung)) refers to the reconciliation of two opposing forces within a given society (i.e. the cultural and material realms, or the superstructure and base) by a mediating object. Similar to this, within media studies the central mediating factor of a given culture is the medium of communication itself. The popular conception of mediation refers to the reconciliation of two opposing parties by a third, and this is similar to its meaning in both Marxist theory and media studies. For Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, this mediating factor is capital or alternately labor,〔Marx, Karl and Frederick Engels. "The German Ideology." Ed. C. J. Arthur. New York: International Publishers, 1973.〕 depending on how one views capitalist society (capital is the dominant mediating factor, but labor is another mediating factor that could overthrow capital as the most important one). To give a concrete example of this, a worker making shoes in a shoe factory is not only producing shoes, but potential exchange-value. The shoes are commodities that can be sold for cash. In this way, the value of the labor of the worker is the exchange-value of the shoes he or she produces minus his or her compensation. At the same time, however, the shoes produced have certain social or cultural values as well. In this way, the worker’s labor is mediating between the economic or exchange-value of the shoes, and their social or cultural, or symbolic value. In media studies, thinkers like Marshall McLuhan treat “the medium is the message” or the medium of a given social object (such as a book, CD, or television show) as the touchstone for both the cultural and material elements of the society in which this object exists.〔McLuhan, Marshall. "Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man." Cambridge: MIT Press, 1994.〕 McLuhan is famous for critiquing the different types of cultural and material processes that are made available between print-based media (like books and magazines) and electronic media like television, radio, and film. While print requires thinking that is linear, chronological, and separate from the thinking of others, electronic media are considered more organic, simultaneous, and interdependent on other media and on other users of that media. Many thinkers〔such as "Marxism And Media Studies: Key Concepts and Contemporary Trends" by Mike Wayne; "Media Ecologies: Materialist Energies in Art and Technoculture" by Matthew Fuller; "Media and Cultural Studies" by Meenakshi Gigi Durham and Douglas Kellner; "Marxism and Communication Studies: The Point Is to Change It" edited by Lee Artz, Steve Macek, and Dana L. Cloud; and "Hypercapitalism: New Media, Language, and Social Perceptions of Value" by Phil Graham〕 are now considering how Marxist theory affects the way we think of media and vice versa, at the same time that new media are becoming a major form of communication. Contemporary media theorists often use elements of Marxist theory, such as mediation, to look at how new media affect social relations and lifestyles through their ability to communicate images, sounds, and other forms of information across the globe at incredible speeds. == Mediation in Marxism == The problem of mediation in Marxism is also referred to as the problem of determination, or namely how social actors navigate the social structures that bind them. For Marx, the primary form of mediation is labor, which forms a dialectical relationship between a worker’s body and nature. Labor thus mediates between humans and the natural world. Once labor becomes reified, or made into an abstraction that becomes a commodity, however, it becomes alienated from the worker who owns it and becomes exchangeable just like any other commodity. Once this occurs, capital becomes the mediating or determining factor, with the capitalist setting the wage rate or exchange-value of labor. The only thing the worker owns in this case, his or her labor power or ability to work, becomes the worker’s sole means of subsistence. The worker must get as much value from his or her labor as is possible on the open market in order to survive. A major theme in Marxism is the problem of mediation or determination: what amount of agency does labor have in light of the determining forces of a given culture. Implicit in this is the underlying fact that labor is itself worth something, and thus the mediator is actually money, be it access to money or its possession. All arenas of conflict are mediated by how money acts as a primary determining agent in the outcome of that struggle. As James Arnt Aune has reflected, questions that arise concerning this problem include: “How do institutions, practices, and messages shape class formation? What alternative institutions, practices, and messages are available to those who wish to reshape class formations within the framework of structural possibilities?” (46). The question of mediation, then, is a question, as Aune puts it, of how Marxist theory mediates “structural possibilities and popular struggle” (46).〔 Aune, James Arnt. ''Rhetoric and Marxism.'' Boulder: Westview Press, 1994.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Mediation (Marxist theory and media studies)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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