Powermatics by Marike Finlay - de Monchy

Author:Marike Finlay - de Monchy [Monchy, Marike Finlay - de]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Media Studies
ISBN: 9781317367253
Google: RbvMCgAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2015-10-23T05:59:44+00:00

3.18 Decentralization: a contextually realizable possibility

Innis (1951–77), Carey (1969), Gilpin (1980), and Minc (1980) all suggest that new communications technology could potentially facilitate the unification of members of societies of discourse with common interests at the expense of hegemony.9 They argue that:

communications technology may be biased either way, in some cases encouraging political fragmentation and in others favouring centralization. (Gilpin 1980, 230)

But where conflicts are many, varied and decentralized (…) the stakes are different (…) There is no one unifying core of conflict (…) clearly the modes of aggregation of various types of opposition which lie at the very root of political action, are bound to change (…) This will have marked consequences for the balance of socio-political forces. (Minc 1980, 158–59)

It is not the absence or presence of networking hook-ups alone that will determine whether centralization or decentralization will occur as a result of new communications technology. It is the extent to which particular groups may impose upon other societies of discourse an adherence to the rules and procedures of their own society of discourse. Thus, depending on the degree to which new communications technology encourages or discourages obedience to and internalization of a unified set of discursive procedures, this technology may be said to contribute towards centralization or decentralization.

Pleading the case of decentralization, Minc suggests that there will be both large, centralized corporate groups of communicational control and smaller and medium sized groups or discursive societies (Minc/OECD 1980, 158).

Pergler (1980) makes an even more interesting suggestion concerning the potential for the decentralization of communication and social control. He states that corporations will quite inadvertently impose new communications technology in domestic situations as two-way incasting and that, just as inadvertently, the discourses of these incasting technologies will follow corporate discursive procedures, unless the government intervenes to ensure otherwise. In other words, for Pergler, lack of government intervention will encourage centralization but its presence could diffuse the monopoly of ‘corporate’ discursive procedures over the domestic discursive sphere.

Business interests, without caring much about social incasting, will probably soon introduce to Canada technologies and organizations that will make social incasting possible. Once introduced, social incasting will contribute to the pressure for improvement of over-government-citizen communication. If governments undertake a profound revision of this process of communication, incasting may marginally exacerbate the coming conflict. (Pergler 1980, xvii)

Lowi also deviates from the theory that centralization of corporate interests will lead to the discursive centralization of corporate control. He lists some traditional communicational procedures, which are roughly akin to the ones uncovered in the previous chapters, and then suggests alternative procedures. While we do not wish to indulge in futurist projections, it is worth noting that Lowi describes a possible change of power relations in society as dependent upon a possible change in communicational procedures of organization:

External supervision through span of control, formal hierarchies of authority and narrow definition of jobs is being supplanted and may in the long run be replaced by other principles of organization, including professionalization, lower-level decision-making, networking patterns rather than simple vertical patterns of communication.

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