Base, superstructure and the Irish property crash towards a crisis theory of communications

Since the onset of the great recession there have been key debates around various aspectsof crisis theory, most notably around the areas of the rate of profit (Brenner 2009; Kliman 2012),under-consumption/overproduction (Clarke 1990a, 442 467) and fiancialisation (Duménil and Lévy2004). This paper maintains that communications and the media are key though non-deterministicelements of the contemporary market system, and proposes a move towards a crisis theory of communications.This research reflects the Marxist concept of base and superstructure, beyond a perceivednotion of economic determinism, but rather as a dialectical relationship between various superstructures,in this case the state and the media, and the economic base including the various aspectsof class power inherent within. The mass media, advertising, and ICT play an increasingly importantrole in both market systems and capitalist crises. This role directly impinges on the dissemination ofinformation to market actors as well as the reflexive and dialectical nature of the processes by whichactors respond to market information. Further, the media serve as an ideological apparatus, resourceor arena, which acts to naturalise the market through what this research describes as a market orientatedframing mechanism (Preston and Silke 2011b). Peter Thompson (2003; 2013, 208 227) contendsthat communication is an integral and reflexive part of the contemporary market system. As heputs it, there is a complex relationship between the producers and distributors of economic information,and those who use that information to make decisions about investment and trade. Many studiespoint to the convergence of flows of information such as those on 24-hour news channels, businesschannels and Internet blogs and sites with market activity itself. For Wayne Hope, (2010, 649 669) information broadcast on such media by bankers, stockbrokers and traders themselves tends tobe self-serving and inevitably leads to a real time feedback loop that proliferates then contributes tothe growth and collapse of speculative bubbles [ibid, 665]). Finally, we must note how the mass mediaalso play a pervasive and important role in the commodification process through advertising andindeed comprises a part of the circulation of capital itself (Garnham 1979, 122 146; Fuchs 2009b,369 402; Fuchs 2009a). This paper, by way of example, looks at three key moments in the Irish economiccrisis and briefly looks at their treatment by sections of the press: The Irish property market onthe run up to the 2007 general election on the cusp of the Irish crash, the blanket bank guarantee of2008, where the state effectively guaranteed the debts of the entire Irish banking system in its totality,and finally the introduction of the National Asset Management Agency, a state sponsored bad bankaimed at cleaning up the (then) private banking industry. The paper uses these examples to considerthe role of the media and its relationship to both the markets and political policy.