Hans Magnus Enzensberger

Não conhecia o pensamento de Hans Magnus Enzensberger e, pelo que já vi, parece-me que a academia não lhe tem dado o destaque merecido.

É verdade que Enzensberger não escreve segundo as regras estritas da academia (pelo menos na pequena parte que li), mas o que escreve merece ser citado. Decobri-o citado em "The Masses - The Implosion of the Social in Media", de Jean Baudrillard, com um trabalho chamado (em inglês) "Constituens of a Theory of the Media".

Eis alguns excertos de uns excertos que encontrei  a circularem por aí na internet [se alguma alma caridosa encontrar algo mais completo, sou todo ouvidos!]:

"For the first time in history, the media are making possible mass participation in a social and socialized productive process, the practical means of which are in the hands of the masses themselves. Such a use of them would bring the communications media, which up to now have not deserved the name, into their own. In its present form, equipment like television or film does not serve communication but prevents it. It allows no reciprocal action between transmitter and receiver; technically speaking, it reduces feedback to the lowest point compatible with the system."

"The development from a mere distribution medium to a communications medium is technically not a problem. It is consciously prevented for understandable political reasons. The technical distinction between receivers and transmitters reflects the social division of labor into producers and consumers, which in the consciousness industry becomes of particular political importance."

"George Orwell's bogey of a monolithic consciousness industry derives from a view of the media that is undialectical and obsolete. The possibility of total control of such a system at a central point belongs not to the future but to the past."

"The liberal superstition that in political and social questions there is such a thing as pure, unmanipulated truth seems to enjoy remarkable currency within the socialist left. It is the unspoken basic premise of the manipulation thesis."

"Thus, every use of the media presupposes manipulation. The most elementary processes in media production, from the choice of the medium itself to shooting, cutting, synchronization, dubbing, right up to distribution, are all operations carried out on the raw material. There is no such thing as unmanipulated writing, filming, broadcasting. The question is therefore not whether the media are manipulated, but who manipulates them."

"The new media are egalitarian in structure. Anyone can take part in them by a simple switching process. The programs themselves are not material things and can be reproduced at will. In this sense the electronic media are entirely different from the older media like the book or easel painting, the exclusive class character of which is obvious."

"Anyone who expects to be emancipated by technological hardware, or by a system of hardware however structured, is the victim of an obscure belief in progress. Anyone who imagines that freedom for the media will be established if only everyone is busy, transmitting and receiving, is the dupe of (a) liberalism (...)"

And so on...

Algumas das perguntas colocadas no final destes excertos também são interessantes. E não me importava nada de lhes responder...