Information and protocol as new notion of meaning and the question of power.


The first sentence

The first sentence of academic writings can be thought as somehow insincere, as something what
comes into existence somehow devaluated. As a kind of performative contradiction. The first
sentence sounds like a promise of knowledge and wisdom which is brought here to reveal the truth,
when in fact, at least for some of us, it is just another small brick in their academic career
rather than a blessing of Reason. This unpalatable insight can be understood as an unintended
consequence of the reflection process or as an inevitable consequence of alienation. No matter how
we conceive it, what is maybe even more important is that if the language is recognized as sold and
devaluated, it seems that a narrative sentence is not the best notion of knowledge or wisdom
anymore. Knowledge that works through such a language can be nothing more than just another
ideology or deception. That nihilism, cynicism or scepticism towards contemporary knowledge could
be understood here as unintended consequences of Enlightenment, its hidden blade or a mirror.

In Dialectics of Enlightenment Horkheimer and Adorno conduct their critique of Enlightenment
through recognition of particular subject and object of knowledge and oppressive character of
peculiar relationship between these two. It seems that mere use of language necessarily invokes and
reifies system of domination founded on Enlightenment model of knowledge (Adorno, Horkheimer 2010).
According to classical critical thinkers negation is no longer possible through such a language
(Marcuse). Also poststructuralist thinkers recognize existence of peculiar relationship between
knowledge, power and language perceived as a medium of knowledge. However post-structural thinkers
such as Derrida (but also Foucault in particular period), assign much bigger importance to language
than classical critical thinkers. For Derrida whole western metaphysics understood as a system of
though is constituted and reproduced on the basis of linguistic sign (Derrida 2000:241-248).  Of
course all of these kinds of concerns can be understood as a part of wider postmodern enterprise.
Nevertheless what is important is the fact that as soon as 'hermeneutics of suspicious' had been
aimed on itself dejection became most frequented result of theoretical practice and very often it
was the language itself which turned out to be corrupted part of critical enterprise (Foucault,
Deleuze, Baudrillard). One could claim that: “how to escape the corrupted medium of language if
critique has to continue?”, respectively “were to find a transcendental realm from which the
critique could be lead?” belong to still (never) answered questions of postmodern thought.

But it seems that language understood as a medium of knowledge not only looses its credibility.
Armed with narrative sentences and closures of discourse one can refer to, judge and evaluate other
narrative sentence, but do they really matter anymore? Does social life can still be understood as
an outcome of agreement achieved through the process (less or more equal or rational) within which
interests, values and meanings of particular groups and individuals are negotiated? Or eventually,
if the form is not true and language still matters, then how does its meaning change when
incorporated into so called information flows? These questions implies that narrative closures
could loose not only credibility but their relevancy too. Scott Lash has already drawn on this
phenomenon in his Critique of Information (2002). Lash recognized that introduction of
communication technologies to our daily lives and their ubiquity have led to development of new
forms of social reproduction as well as new technologies of power. In order to recognize and
examine them one has to abandon realm of language and jump into information flows[1]. However for
Lash information is not a kind of binary numeric code. Quite opposite, for him information is a
notion of meaning. Meaning which he sharply distinguishes from meaning, which is created through
language and discourse practices. According to author of Critique of Information it is information
(understood as a notion of meaning), which seems to prevail now and that fact has a serious and
complex impact not only on our lives but also on the realm of theory and critique.

Of course it is not only Scott Lash who tries to understand contemporary society in terms of
profound cultural change rather than keep focus on quantitative indicators which refer to changes
in employment or production patent. Even though similar ideas seem to be present in work of few
others scholars, in this paper I would like to compare ideas of Scott Lash with these of Alexander
Galloway. My reason to clash these two authors and their concepts is that also Galloway in his book
Protocol actually introduces a concept, which can be understood a new notion of meaning - protocol
(Galloway). Due to the particular common scope, which both writers share such a comparison seems to
be very productive one – namely both writers claim that key to understand the essence of on-going
social change is to be found in the realm of meaning creation and transmission. According to
Alexander Galloway in order to properly understand dynamics of contemporary society one must
understand the way in which protocol rules flows of information. As such protocol is a diagram,
which stands for contemporary society. Actually it would be much more handy for me to continue this
introduction with a diagram too. Following nodes and surfaces would be present within that diagram:


ontology, critical theory, power, theories of information society®, humanities, information,
semantics, post-human condition, cultural theories, sociology, meaning, epistemology etc.


Proposing any kind of linear connections or strict hierarchy between these notions would be an
absurd, relic of language habits, nothing more than compulsions of knowing subject. And this paper
is nothing more than a floating part of a wider project aimed to eliminate this amusing phantom –
idea of knowing subject as developed within Enlightenment project or tradition of Western
Metaphysics. In order to do so few operations are going to be done. Firstly I am going to briefly
refer and compare two notions of meaning protocol and information. Then I will clash the concept of
meaning, which they both presuppose with previously ruling notion of sign. Afterwards in order to
complete the dialectic cycle I am going to draw possibilities of synthesis what actually leads me
to more general question of dialectics. Unfortunately due to strict data storage restrictions in
this paper I will touch only the surface rather than giving well-rounded explanations.


Setting of a paradigm shift

My understanding of bodies of theories in which I am interested it is partly that of paradigm shift
as introduced by Thomas Kuhn in 1962. I would argue that theories I am going to reflect on are part
of wider paradigm shift in humanities. I think that only this particular awareness, kind of
interpretative horizon, gives possibility to comprehensive understanding of theories under my
interest. In the context of this paper Kuhn's insights are important as they inform us about
historical and at the same time non-linear character of knowledge.

In Kuhn's key work The Structures of Scientific Revolutions (1962)  “neutral” or random state of
affairs in science is called a normal science:


‘Normal science’ means research firmly based upon one or more past scientific achievements,
achievements that some particular scientific community acknowledges for a time as supplying the
foundation for its further practice. Today such achievements are recounted, though seldom in their
original form, by science textbooks, elementary and advanced. These textbooks expound the body of
accepted theory, illustrate many or all of its successful applications, and compare these
applications with exemplary observations and experiments. (Kuhn 1970:10)


In my field of study, which are sociology and media studies there do exists a huge body of 'normal
science'.  In more global terms with respect to 'revolutionary' theories which I am interested in
one can include to such a 'normal science' all contemporary human sciences with their traditional
division on particular disciplines, with their tradition based on Enlightenment idea of knowledge,
with rational subject rooted in that particular idea of knowledge, which as mentioned earlier can
be derived from tradition of Logos. It is indeed huge body of knowledge including whole spectrum of
well developed methods and terminology. In more local terms, within field of media studies one can
point to content analysis, discursive analysis, textual analysis, survey, observation and so on.
All of these methods and approaches have been well developed and mastered to solve particular
research problems within particular research field. It does not mean though that in my argument I
want to overestimate language as the most important aspect of social life. Nor it does mean that it
was the language, which in all cases has been the object of inquiry. I just claim that it is
crucial to realize that knowledge about/referring to all the other aspects of social life to which
the previous knowledge regime refers, has been grasped through language and language-derived tools
of inquiry.

According to Kuhn serious dysfunction of 'normal science' has to occur to bring a paradigm shift.
To stay on theoretical ground post-modernism could be regarded as expression of such a dysfunction.
As such postmodernism is a critique of Enlightenment project and idea of knowledge, which it
embodies. Indeed both Scott Lash and Alexander Galloway in many respects draw on postmodernist
thinkers such as Michael Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida and others. Both apply
post-modern insights in their theories.

As one of possible reasons of existing paradigm dysfunction Kuhn adduces a necessity to “assimilate
new sort of phenomena” (Kuhn 1970:92). In order to identify possible reasons of previous paradigm
dysfunction, namely the “new sort of phenomena” which has to be assimilated by contemporary
knowledge, many post-modern thinkers, but especially post-critical thinkers, points to ubiquity of
technology in contemporary everyday life.


 GIDDENS expertske systemy


As Scott Lash notices nowadays one “cannot achieve sociality in the absence of technological
systems” (Lash 2002:16). Yet it is important to understand that claim merely in qualitative terms
as in Lash's terms ubiquity of technology is a cultural argument. What he means by that are the
peculiar dialectic relations between technology and culture on the one hand, and technology and
nature on the other. Namely what Lash means are ‘technological forms of life’. By that concept he
means that the relation between technology and culture is not that of causality but rather of
identity, respectively correspondence. Similar intuition can be found in a work of key postmodern
thinkers. In his Postscript on Control Societies Gilles Deleuze states:


“It is easy to set up a correspondence between any society and some kind of machine... The old
sovereign societies worked with simple machines, levers, pulleys, clocks; but recent disciplinary
societies were equipped with thermodynamic machines...; control societies function with a third
generation of machines, with information technology and computers”. (Deleuze )


Actually in this passage Deleuze seems to draw on Foucault work and his conception of shifting
power regimes and their technologies (Foucault ). Nevertheless what is important here from the
paradigm shift perspective is the assumption that changes within social reality will inevitably
lead to emergence of new questions within field of knowledge in correspondence to new social
phenomena. According to logic of paradigm shift as described by Thomas Kuhn in his Logic of
Scientific Revolutions to answer these new questions one may require a whole new conceptual and
methodological toolbox. One of the main claims which are present in theories under my concern is
thesis about insufficiency of 'normal science' to answer these questions (Lash 2002, Galloway
2004). This issue is closely related to another important notion which is present in work of Thomas
Kuhn, namely that of incommensurability between particular paradigms, between 'normal' and
'revolutionary' science (Kuhn :148). Two paradigms cannot really refer to each other and this is
one very important concern, which one has to accept if he wants to understand theories under my
concern. In Kuhn's work incommensurability between “pre- and post-revolutionary scientific
traditions” is derived from semantic assumption. According to commentary on Kuhn’s work given by
Alexander Bird:


“This is taxonomic incommensurability. A field of science is governed by a taxonomy, which divides
its subject matter into kinds. Associated with a taxonomy is a lexical network—a network of related
terms. A significant scientific change will bring with it an alteration in the lexical network
which in turn will lead to a re-alignment of the taxonomy of the field. The terms of the new and
old taxonomies will not be inter-translatable” (Bird 2011)


That implies two important concerns for my analysis. Firstly one cannot judge, evaluate or
interpret incoming theories with criteria or tools of inquiry derived from already existing
theories, from normal science. To give some examples the accusation of technological determinism
gives sense only within previously dominating paradigm. Only within sociology of modernity fields
of social, cultural, technology and so on have been sharply distinguished so they could influence
each other (ZDROJ). If there is no sharp division between culture and technology, one cannot
distinguish between medium and content and so on. However in the light of theories under my
consideration differentiation theory is no longer valid and such a kind of determinism basically
cannot occur. But there is also a second transcendental condition to be fulfilled if technological
determinism has to be possible. Such a type of determinism gives sense only if one assumes linear
progress of time what allows him to think causal relationship between entities. But what if linear
hierarchies or other divisions derived from Kantian categories are not valid anymore? Do these
categories still give sense in the times of 'technological culture'? That is the reason why, if one
wants to comprehend post-critical theories, he has to critically reflect on ‘epistemological
rupture’[2], which do exist between both paradigms.

Secondly Kuhn's notion of incommensurability can perfectly work as criterion to distinguish between
'normal' and 'revolutionary' science. For many scholars process of assimilation of new phenomena is
just mere addition to existing state of knowledge and as such has not really serious impact on
paradigm within which they conduct their work. In other words they encounter new phenomena with
their old ready to hand toolbox. That seems to be the case of New Media Studies. Within that
particular filed of studies the new phenomena - ubiquity of highly developed technologies in our
everyday life is understood basically as an introduction of the new medium. It means that a totally
new phenomenon is being subsumed under already existing notion of ‘communication medium’. Thus what
is 'similar' is being judged as more important feature than what 'differs'. What was
incommensurable in the new phenomenon has been cut off or filtered out in order to conform status
quo. However according to my understanding of post-critical theories, these theories are
incommensurable with theories belonging to previous paradigm. Post-critical theories do not conform
to status quo. They are still critical.


Information

Scott Lash recent book, Critique of Information (2002), presents highly elaborated and complex
argument in critical theory. According to Lash critical theory, as we know it from Frankfurt School
and its followers[3], is not longer possible. What makes it out of date is the social change that
we witness as contemporary society transform into information order. In his argument Lash points
out that tools for critical exploration of society, useful when applied to industrial society are
not necessarily sufficient when one tries to comprehend an information order. Actually in the light
of Critique of Information they could be even misleading as they can conceal phenomena which elude
sensitivity of old toolkit. The reason is that nowadays we deal mainly with phenomena which are not
discursive at all. At this point one can ask, what is so specific for `information order` that
makes it intangible for well-established methods and approaches? When Lash claims that information
order is primarily made of information, he means nothing more than that. However he is one of the
first thinkers who try to give some meaning to that frequently repeated sentence and consider its
implications. To presents his idea what information really is Scott Lash confronts it with
cultural, sociological and economical forms of previously dominating social order. In other words
he considers information with reference to its antithesis, the notions of linguistic sign and
notion of discourse. In this respect what is very unusual on Lash account on information is the
fact that even though he derives many characteristics of `information` from its technological
origin, he does not understand information in terms of binary code. For him information is foremost
notion of meaning and it still belongs to the realm of thought, otherwise critique of information
could not be possible. It seems that for Lash his notion of information is a kind of remedy for
declining credibility and relevancy of previously dominating forms of culture, social order or
strategies of capital accumulation. How does then the information, which constitutes forms of
contemporary culture and social order, differ from these earlier forms? According to Lash main
qualities of information are: flow, disembeddedness, spatial and temporal compression and real time
relations (Lash 2002:2). Surely it does not sound new, neither meaningful, but what Scott Lash
seems to do through his argument is trying to consider implications of that fact for
epistemological concerns. To do so he draws on McLuhan dictum that medium is a message and that it
is the medium itself what really makes sense. Thus with respect to profound changes in
communication media, one should expect profound change in other realms of social life, especially
these that deal with processes of meaning creation and transmission. As Lash notices in the
information age this issue becomes almost an universal issue (Lash 2002:65-78).

For Lash mentioned changes in the realm of communication, epistemology and so on must have some
consequences for the realm of power too.

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