Comunicar 39-ingles - Revista Comunicar

102Comunicar, 39, XX, 2012«What matters here, rather than teach things andtransmit content, is that the individual learns to learn;to be capable of thinking for himself, to overcome verificationsmerely empirical and immediate findings offacts that surround it (naive consciousness) and developits own capacity to reduce, to relate, elaboratesynthesis (critical consciousness)» (Kaplún, 1998: 51).1. Introit: An approach to critical theoryThe first 30 years of the 20 th century were dominatedby the print media and their capacity to generateopinion, as well as radio and cinema, instruments ofdisclosure of far-reaching and significant emotionalimpact that rectify the problems of access to informationimposed mainly by legal culture. In this context,critical theory proposes new ways of approaching realitythat differ from those used in other countries at thattime, in order to produce through transdisciplinarity asa way of thought and action the tools necessary to respondto the equitable transformation of the world.The initial steps in critical communication theory weretaken at the Frankfurt School, a name given to thegroup of researchers led by Max Horkheimer thatgenerated studies in various fields of knowledge (aesthetics,arts, anthropology, sociology and philosophy),from the Institute for Social Research of the Universityof Frankfurt 1 , and comprised the so-called criticalparadigm of communication.Basically the Frankfurt outlook reacts to the leadershipof research in American communication, withits functionalist character, whereby one of the functionsof the media is to provide regulation and socialequilibrium. The aspect that was strongly challengedby the Frankfurt school referred to the use of themedia as instruments of political control and commercialdomination.The set of studies arising from the so-called NorthAmerican school 2 fell within a double slope. The firstwere those that form part of the empirical and sociologicalparadigm of structural-functionalism and theMathematical Theory of Information 3 . The secondare the sociological studies from the Chicago school.US investigations endorsed the media effectapproach, represented chiefly by the Magic BulletTheory or Needle Hypodermic 4 . This theory is basedon the idea of the omnipotence of the media toinfluence an audience considered passive and there -fore easily manipulable, and is based on studies byIvan Pavlov and Burrhus Frederic Skinner’s SocialBehaviorism. The increased activity of the NorthAmerican school is shown in «Work on PoliticalPropaganda» funded by the Institute for PropagandaAnalysis, as well as the effects of radio and cinema onmorality and culture, and studies on hearings linkedessentially to advertising. The effects become the starresearch theme. «All the other elements of the communicationprocess are considered as soon as they cancontribute to improving the impact: the contents areanalyzed to subsequently design more effective messagesand the study of recipients interested in knowinghow to influence attitudes and motivations» (Igartúa &Humanes, 2004: 113)It was to identify how efficiently audiences areinfluenced in order to get at certain answers and shapepublic opinion that the studies generated by HaroldLasswell, especially the so-called «5 Ws» formula(Who says? What is said? What are the effects…?),were decisive for the analysis of the communicationprocess., which considered control/property/issue, thecontent (technological channels, audiences andeffects); and this is research line that is still in force.In the research context, we recall the propagandacampaigns of the Second World War that sought toconvince the population of the benefits they couldobtain in the event of war, such as well as buyingmore bonds (Igartúa & Humanes, 2004). This is aclear example of how government sought to influencethe audience with the aspiration of obtaining resultsthrough the use of strategies of persuasion that yearslater were still being used in advertising and politics,without ignoring other areas.The critical theorists of the Frankfurt Schoolobject to the US researchers’ epistemological principles,believing that the data that yield standardized surveysand other tools do not report relevant interpretationsof the complex reality. The research should notbe an instrument for achieving commercial purposesbut a factor to ensure a society that is more just andbalanced in all aspects. In this regard, TheodoreAdorno writes: «It seems clear that civil society needsto go on enriching itself in critical terms. The attitudeof the cultural critic, thanks to the difference or distancebetween them and evil and disorder, lets you overridetheoretically, although the critique often fails forbeing remote from them. What makes the critical attitudework is the articulation of the difference or distancewithin the same cultural device which aimed toovercome, and you need precisely that distance to takein culture» (Adorno, in Lucas & al., 2003: 187).The Frankfurt School analyzes the cultural crisis ofindustrial societies from the Marxist episteme, andtheir topics of interest include focusing on political economy,the labor movement and the Marxist philosophy.The main postulate of the school is based on© ISSN: 1134-3478 • e-ISSN: 1988-3293• Pages 101-108