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Invention Of Communication by Armand Mattelart
French
- GenresCommunicationTechnology
Paperback
First published January 1, 1994
47 people want to read
About the author
Armand Mattelart
90 books21 followersAfter finishing his undergraduate studies Mattelart joined a community of secular monks in Brittany for one year, but went on to study Law and Political Science at the Catholic University of Louvain. Afterwards he studied demography at the Institute of Demographic Studies in Paris (founded by the influential left intellectual Alfred Sauvy -- who in 1952 coined the term Third World). Upon finishing his studies he is appointed as an expert on the politics of population by the Vatican, and in 1962 is sent to the Universidad Católica de Chile. While in Chile he married Michèle Mattelart.
While in Chile Mattelart was appointed to confront from a catholic spiritual perspective the strategic models for family planning which were at the time being pushed by the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations and the Alianza para el Progreso (Alliance for Progress -- a US official aid program). The US family planning model aimed to limit the natality to "improve the lives of the inhabitants of the continent" and of course in conflict with the Catholic teachings. The revolutionary transformations in Latin America post-1960 require that the Church enter the ideological fray and develop communication strategies applied to "ideological, political and social struggles" to create ideological and political alternatives to atheist communism or the "protestant North American imperialism".
While always based at the Catholic Univ. of Chile, Mattelart underwent a transformation in his thoughts and beliefs. He initiated a collaboration with the Centro de Estudios de la Realidad Nacional (CEREN) (Center for the Study of the National Reality), founded in 1968 under the auspices of the Catholic Univ. Jacques Chonchol was CEREN's director (also an important ideolog with MAPU -- a left offshoot of the Christian Democrats which was also part of the Unidad Popular government). CEREN's first research conducted by Armando Mattelart, Michèle Mattelart, Mabel Paccini, et al., had to do with an structural left analysis of the liberal press, the "celebrity" publications, the pseudo-amorous magazines. Mattelart primarily studied El Mercurio, the principal liberal newspaper. This was the starting-point of his life-long involvement with the history of communications.
The Cuadernos de la Realidad Nacional (Notebooks of the National Reality), CEREN's publication, became the principal ideological generators and emiters during the social democratic government of Salvador Allende (1970 - 1973). The journal was similar to the French post-structuralist model, and it was primarily aimed to analyze the political economy of the mass media. Under this rubric, Mattelart and Ariel Dorfman published in 1971 the famous pamphlet: Para leer al Pato Donald, manual de descolonización antinorteamericana (How to read "Donald Duck", a manual for American de-colonization), where they provided an structural analysis (supposedly Marxist) where they denounce the "yankee media penetration" via Disney comics. The book analyzed the celebrated family of ducks and presented them as nasty agents of the North American cultural imperialism. This book was banned in the United States lending it great publicity and it became one of the best-selling books in Latin America during the 1970s.
After the Chilean coup of 1973, Mattelart returned to France where (at age 37) he had to restart his academic career -- he became a visiting scholar at the University of Paris VIII Saint-Denis. He later became a full professor of Science of Information and Communication -- a topic on which he later became a theoretician. In 1974, he worked on La Espiral, a film justifying the Chilean route to socialism. Between 1983 and 1997 he has been Professor of Information and Communication Sciences at the University of Rennes 2 – Upper Brittany, and in the postgraduate program at Paris III (Nouvelle Sorbonne) -Rennes 2. Between 1997-2004, he has been Professor at the Université of Paris VIII. Since September 2004, he is Pr
While in Chile Mattelart was appointed to confront from a catholic spiritual perspective the strategic models for family planning which were at the time being pushed by the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations and the Alianza para el Progreso (Alliance for Progress -- a US official aid program). The US family planning model aimed to limit the natality to "improve the lives of the inhabitants of the continent" and of course in conflict with the Catholic teachings. The revolutionary transformations in Latin America post-1960 require that the Church enter the ideological fray and develop communication strategies applied to "ideological, political and social struggles" to create ideological and political alternatives to atheist communism or the "protestant North American imperialism".
While always based at the Catholic Univ. of Chile, Mattelart underwent a transformation in his thoughts and beliefs. He initiated a collaboration with the Centro de Estudios de la Realidad Nacional (CEREN) (Center for the Study of the National Reality), founded in 1968 under the auspices of the Catholic Univ. Jacques Chonchol was CEREN's director (also an important ideolog with MAPU -- a left offshoot of the Christian Democrats which was also part of the Unidad Popular government). CEREN's first research conducted by Armando Mattelart, Michèle Mattelart, Mabel Paccini, et al., had to do with an structural left analysis of the liberal press, the "celebrity" publications, the pseudo-amorous magazines. Mattelart primarily studied El Mercurio, the principal liberal newspaper. This was the starting-point of his life-long involvement with the history of communications.
The Cuadernos de la Realidad Nacional (Notebooks of the National Reality), CEREN's publication, became the principal ideological generators and emiters during the social democratic government of Salvador Allende (1970 - 1973). The journal was similar to the French post-structuralist model, and it was primarily aimed to analyze the political economy of the mass media. Under this rubric, Mattelart and Ariel Dorfman published in 1971 the famous pamphlet: Para leer al Pato Donald, manual de descolonización antinorteamericana (How to read "Donald Duck", a manual for American de-colonization), where they provided an structural analysis (supposedly Marxist) where they denounce the "yankee media penetration" via Disney comics. The book analyzed the celebrated family of ducks and presented them as nasty agents of the North American cultural imperialism. This book was banned in the United States lending it great publicity and it became one of the best-selling books in Latin America during the 1970s.
After the Chilean coup of 1973, Mattelart returned to France where (at age 37) he had to restart his academic career -- he became a visiting scholar at the University of Paris VIII Saint-Denis. He later became a full professor of Science of Information and Communication -- a topic on which he later became a theoretician. In 1974, he worked on La Espiral, a film justifying the Chilean route to socialism. Between 1983 and 1997 he has been Professor of Information and Communication Sciences at the University of Rennes 2 – Upper Brittany, and in the postgraduate program at Paris III (Nouvelle Sorbonne) -Rennes 2. Between 1997-2004, he has been Professor at the Université of Paris VIII. Since September 2004, he is Pr
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 1, 2022
The cover is confusing: the communication as shown in the drawings has always existed, even cats and dogs do it.
Now communication in the sense of Public Relations, yes, was invented and it is a rather new thing, as most people still don't understand it. So what's the book about? Clearly the cover maker and the editor didn't get it.
The book starts in the usual way for an academic leech. Talking in circles about definitions. Meaning Mattelart is the common product of the diploma mills of Europe: spineless, trying to weasel his ideas as coming from names of authority, or as continuation of the thoughts of those long dead White men.
The writing is messy at best. The first paragraph of the introduction mentions both 20th century and 1753. The intellectual fraud can't settle for one measure: years, or centuries. It gets worse, as the second paragraph starts with ”Deja a cette epoque”. What era? 18th or 20th century? Probably for the guy the only difference is his birth date: he was born in one and not the other.
The first chapter is pure crap. The poor idiot compares a story character and a real person. One is a knight in the Middle Ages, the other is an engineer in early Modernity. One is mad, the other feeds the madness of kings. As you can see, they can be considered one and the same person, and they are magically related to the subject of the book. Next, the guy has to make the book French, so he replaces the imaginary person with Descartes, who probably in an alternate universe was the owner of a news agency like Havas. In this reality, Descartes is famous for uttering a tautology, the highest point in reasoning for Mattelart's caste.
The second chapter is somewhat better. It shows the Medieval origins of Mattelart's understanding of Economy, which is on a par with his Logic, or his Math.
In the end, this turns out to be an educative example of the level of fraud required to live the good life off the backs of the working people, who live to pay the taxes so Mattelart could write crap.
Now communication in the sense of Public Relations, yes, was invented and it is a rather new thing, as most people still don't understand it. So what's the book about? Clearly the cover maker and the editor didn't get it.
The book starts in the usual way for an academic leech. Talking in circles about definitions. Meaning Mattelart is the common product of the diploma mills of Europe: spineless, trying to weasel his ideas as coming from names of authority, or as continuation of the thoughts of those long dead White men.
The writing is messy at best. The first paragraph of the introduction mentions both 20th century and 1753. The intellectual fraud can't settle for one measure: years, or centuries. It gets worse, as the second paragraph starts with ”Deja a cette epoque”. What era? 18th or 20th century? Probably for the guy the only difference is his birth date: he was born in one and not the other.
The first chapter is pure crap. The poor idiot compares a story character and a real person. One is a knight in the Middle Ages, the other is an engineer in early Modernity. One is mad, the other feeds the madness of kings. As you can see, they can be considered one and the same person, and they are magically related to the subject of the book. Next, the guy has to make the book French, so he replaces the imaginary person with Descartes, who probably in an alternate universe was the owner of a news agency like Havas. In this reality, Descartes is famous for uttering a tautology, the highest point in reasoning for Mattelart's caste.
The second chapter is somewhat better. It shows the Medieval origins of Mattelart's understanding of Economy, which is on a par with his Logic, or his Math.
In the end, this turns out to be an educative example of the level of fraud required to live the good life off the backs of the working people, who live to pay the taxes so Mattelart could write crap.
July 12, 2008
Mattelart es de lectura obligada para quienes ejercemos las "Ciencias de la Comunicación".
Este fue un regalo de Erika Moreno, amiga querida, que cuenta cómo las utopias se hicieron realidades hasta convertirse en mensajes inimaginables, pero reales.
Este fue un regalo de Erika Moreno, amiga querida, que cuenta cómo las utopias se hicieron realidades hasta convertirse en mensajes inimaginables, pero reales.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews