Some Questions for the True Masters of the World

Author(s): Pierre Bourdieu

Reviewed work(s):
Source: Berkeley Journal of Sociology, Vol. 46, RACE & ETHNICITY: in a global context (2002),
pp. 170-176
Published by: Regents of the University of California
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BERKELEY JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

170

SomeQuestionsfortheTrue MastersoftheWorld*
PierreBourdieu
I shall not riskridiculeby tryingto describethe stateof the world
of the media in frontof people who know it betterthanI do, people who
are amongstthe most powerfulin the world,as holdersof thispower that
is not only that of money but that which money can give over minds.
This symbolic power- the power to make the world by imposing
instrumentsfor the cognitive constructionof the world- has in most
societies in historybeen distinctfrompolitical and economic power. But
today it is being gatheredin the hands of the few who controlthe large
communicationsconglomerates,that is, the ensemble of the means of
productionand distributionof culturalgoods.
I would like to submit these very powerful people to a
questioningof the kindthat Socrates wielded on the powerfulof his age.
In one of his dialogues, he asked, with as much patience as insistence,a
general famous for his courage what courage really is; in another he
asked a man known for his great pietywhat pietyis, and so forth.Each
dialogue served to reveal that his interlocutorsdid not trulyknow what
theywere. But since I am not in a positionto proceed thus,I would like
to raise here publiclya numberof questions which those powerfulmedia
people no doubt do not ask themselves(in particularbecause theydo not
have the time to do so), and which come down to this: masters of the
world, do you have the masteryof your own mastery?Or, put more
simply,do you reallyknow what you are doing, all the consequences of
what you are doing? To these questions Plato replied by the famous
formula,which no doubt applies here also: "No one is willfullywicked."
You tell us thatthe technological and economic convergence of
the broadcast media, telecommunications,and informaticsindustriesand
the resulting merging of the networks make totally inoperative and
useless the juridical protections of the media (such as the rules
stipulating quotas for European contents on European television or
radio). You tell us that the technological proliferationand profusion
linked to the multiplicationof thematicdigital channels will answer the
*

This is thetextofthekeynoteaddressdeliveredat theMeetingoftheMuseumof

Televisionand Radio (JournesCanal Plus-MTR),heldin Parison 11 October1999,
underthepresidencyof HenryKissingerand in thepresenceoftheheads oftheworld's
as revisedin October2000. A shorter
versionappeared
majormediaconglomerates,
initiallyas "Questionsaux vraismatresdu monde,"Le Monde, 14 October1999,and
"Matresdu monde,savez-vousce que vous faites?,"Libration,13 October1998.
TranslatedfromtheFrenchbyLoc Wacquant.

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BOURDIEU:

MASTERS OF THE WORLD

17 1

potentialdemand of the most diverse consumers and that,owing to the

"explosion of media choices," all demands will receive adequate
supply- in short,thatall tastes and wishes will be satisfied.You tell us
that competition,especially when it is associated with technological
progress,is synonymouswith "creativity."I could back up each of these
assertions with dozens of quotes and references,in the end rather
redundant.One example will suffice,since it condenses everythingthatI
have just said, taken from a recent statementby Jean-Marie Messier,
head of Vivendi-Universal: "Millions of jobs have been created in the
United States thanks to the complete deregulation of the
telecommunicationsindustryand technologies. Let us wish that France
will follow suit! The competitiveness of our economy and the
employmentof our childrenare at stake. We must shed our fears and
open wide the doors of competitionand creativity."
But you tell us also that competition from the new, more
powerful, participants in your industry coming from the
telecommunicationsand informaticssectors is such that the broadcast
media find it more and more difficultto resist; that broadcast rights,
especially for sports,cost more and more; that everythingthat the new
technologicallyand economically integratedconglomeratesproduce and
distribute,thatis, televised materialsas well as books, films,and Internet
contents- everythingcovered by the catch-all label of "information"
must be treated as a commodity like any other, subject to the same
commercialrules as any marketproduct.And this standardizedindustrial
product,you tell us, mustthereforeanswer to the common law, the law
of profit:therecan be no "culturalexception" to this law sanctioned by
regulatorylimits, such as prix unique or controlledpricing for books1
and quotas forthe distributionof music and movies. Finally you tell us
thatthe law of profit,that is, the rule of the marketplace,is eminently
democratic since it enforcesthe triumphof the products which are the
most popular,forwhich people "vote" throughtheirpurchases.
One could oppose each of these "ideas" not withotherideas, lest
one appear as an ideologue lost in the fog of thought,but with facts. To
the notion that the marketfostersthe differentiation
and extraordinary
diversificationof supply, one could oppose the fact of the striking
homogenization of television programmingwithin as well as across
countriesand the fact that the manifoldtelevision networkstend more
and more to broadcast, at the same time, the same kinds of products,
game shows, soap operas, commercialmusic, sentimentallove storiesin
the mold of the telenovela, and cop shows which are in no way better
on the contrary for being produced in France (as with the series
1 Translator'snote:In

France,booksare subjectto theprixunique:theymustbe sold

at thesame priceunderlegislationpassed in theearly80s thathas allowed
everywhere
bookstores.
thecountryto keep an extensivenetworkof independent

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172

BERKELEY JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

Navarro) or in Germany(as with Derrick), that is, productsborn of the

quest for maximum profit at minimal cost. And we can observe in
anotherrealm the growinghomogenizationof newspapers and especially
weekly news magazines which look and read ever more identical.
Another example: to the "ideas" of competition and
diversification,one could oppose the hard fact of the extraordinary
concentrationof the media industry,and a concentrationwhich moreover
leads to a vertical integration such that distribution now governs
production, as shown by the latest wave of mergers,typifiedby the
fusion of Viacom and CBS, that is, a business oriented toward the
production of contents and one oriented toward their diffusion.2The
cumulationof the activitiesof production,managementand distribution
withinthe same firmleads to abuses of marketposition via the edge it
gives to in-house products: in France for instance,Gaumont, Path and
UGC control80% of the showings of exclusive movies in Paris eitherin
their own theaters or in theatersbelonging to their group; one could
invoke also here also the proliferationof "multiplex"cinemas thatcreate
unfaircompetitionfor small independentmovie theaters,oftendoomed
to closing.
The main point is thatcommercialconcerns,and in particularthe
search for short-termmaximum profit impose themselves more and
more, and more and more broadly, on all types of culturalproduction.
Thus, in book publishing,which I studied closely,3 editorial strategies
are constrainedto aim directlyat commercialsuccess due to the factthat
the main publishinghouses have been absorbed withinlarge multimedia
conglomeratesand must thereforeensure high profitrates. I could cite
here Mr. Thomas Middlehoff,CEO of Bertelsman, who stated in La
Tribune that he has "given two years to its 350 profitcentersto reach
theirgoals. . . Between now and the end of the year 2000, all sectors must
ensurea returnon investmentof at least 10%."
And that is where one has to begin to raise questions. I have
spoken of culturalproductions,but is it still possible today, and for how
much longer, to speak of cultural products and even of culture?Those
who are makingthe new world of communicationand are made by it are
fond of evoking the problem of "speed," of ever-morerapid flows of
informationand transactions;and theyare no doubt partiallycorrectthey
when thinkabout the circulationof data and the shelf life of products.
2

thistextforpublication(12 October2000), theno less

Or,just as I am proofreading
mergerofthemediagiant,Time Warner,withtheworld'sleadingprovider
frightening
AmericaOn Line (AOL). By law, televisionand radiostations
of access to Internet,
mustalso broadcasta minimumamountofFrench-produced
programsand materials.
Translator'snote:See thedoubleissue ofActesde la rechercheen sciencessociales
devotedto "Publishing,Publishers,"n. 126-127,March 1999,and in particularPierre
dans l'dition,"pp. 3-28.
Bourdieu,"Une rvolutionconservatrice

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BOURDDEU: MASTERS OF THE WORLD

173

This being said, the logic of speed and profit,merginginto the quest for
maximumshort-termprofit (driven by audience ratings for television,
best-sellerlists for books, circulationfiguresfor newspapers and ticket
sales formovies) seem to me hardlycompatiblewiththe idea of culture.
When what the eminent historian of art Ernst Gombrich calls the
"ecological conditions of art" are destroyed,art and culturethemselves
soon die.
For proof of this proposition,I need only mention the fate of
Italian cinema, which not long ago was universallyconsidered as one of
the best and most original in the world, and which today survives only
throughthe work of a handfulof directors;the same applies to German
cinema, or the various cinema traditions of Eastern Europe more
generally. I could mention also the crisis that strikes everywhere
independent cinema, especially due to the faltering of distribution
circuits. Not to speak of the censorship that movie distributorscan
impose on filmmakers the most spectacularrecentillustrationbeing, in
France, the blackout of the movie by Pierre Carles on censorship in the
media.4 Or yetthe fate of a culturalradio stationsuch as France Culture,
one of the last sites of freedom from market pressure and editorial
marketing,which is now being liquidated in the name of "modernity,"
betteraudience ratings,and intra-medianepotism.
But one cannot reallyunderstandwhat the reductionof cultureto
a commercialproductmeans unless one recalls how the universeswithin
which the works thatare universallyconsideredas universal in the realm
of the visual arts, literature,and cinema, came into being. All these
works which are exhibitedin museums,these novels that have attained
classic status,these movies preservedin film archives and repositories,
all were the productof social microcosmsthatconstitutedthemselvesby
freeingthemselvesgraduallyfromthe laws of the ordinaryworld, and in
particularthose of the economy.5Here is an example to flesh out what I
mean: the painter of the Quattrocento,as we know from reading the
contractshe signed, had to struggleagainst his patronsto ensure thathis
work cease to be treatedas a mere product,evaluated by the surface of
the canvas paintedand the cost of the colors used. He had to strugglefor
the rightto sign his own works,thatis to say, the rightto be treatedas an
author and also for what has for a relatively short time been called
4

to PierreCarles's award-winning
Pas
[Trans,note]This is in reference
documentary,
and structural
collusionbetweenFrance's
vu,pas pris,on thepersonalcomplicity
televisionjournalistsand top-levelpoliticians,whichwas originallycommissionedand
thencensoredbytheprivatechannelCanal + (now partof Vivendi-Universal)
as well
as by all Frenchtelevisionschannelsand radiostations.The moviewas subsequently
shownon Belgian televisionand thenreleasedon theindependent
movietheatercircuit
whereitdrewrecordcrowds.
and GenesisoftheLiteraryField,
See PierreBourdieu,TheRules ofArt:Structure
Cambridge,PolityPress, 1997 (orig. 1993).

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BERKELEY JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

"droits d'auteur"- literally,"author's rights"or copyright(Beethoven

was stillbattlingto see themrecognized). He had to struggleforscarcity,
uniqueness, quality, and he managed to accede to the status of artistas
"creator" only with the active collaboration of critics, biographers,
professorsof art history,etc., in shorta whole gamut of figuresdevoted
to upholding specificallyartisticcriteria,against economic and political
dictatesin particular.
Now, it is all of this that is under attack today through the
reduction of the oeuvre to the product, creation to merchandise. The
strugglesof filmdirectorsto retaincontrolof the "final cut" and against
the claim of producersto retainthe rightsover the finishedwork are the
exact contemporarycounterpartto the struggles of the Quattrocento
painter.It took nearlyfive centuriesfor paintersto conquer the rightto
choose their own colors, to decide how to use them, and, towards the
very end, to choose their subjects (and eventuallyto make the subject
disappear, as in abstract art, much to the indignationof the bourgeois
patron). Likewise, to have a cinma d'auteur, artistic movie-making,
requiresthe developmentof an entiresocial universe,composed of small
movie theaterswhere classic filmsare screened by students,movie clubs
run by philosophy professorswho are movie buffsformed by regular
patronage of these very theaters,specialized critics who write in Les
Cahiers du cinma and othermovie magazines, filmmakerswho learned
their craftby watching movies whose critique they had read in those
magazines, in short,a specific social milieu wherein a certain kind of
movie acquires value and recognition.
It is these social universes that are today threatenedby the
irruption of commercial cinema and by the domination of large
distributors,with whom producers must reckon, except when they are
themselves distributors.As the historical products of a long-term
evolution,they have now enteredinto a process of involution,they are
the locus of retreat,a turningbackwards fromwork to product,fromthe
authorto the engineerwho uses technicalresources(the famous "special
effects") and movie stars, both of which are extremelyexpensive, to
manipulate or satisfythe primal urges of spectators(themselves often
anticipated by other technicians specializing in marketing).Now, we
know thatit takes a long time to create creators,thatis, forthe partially
autonomous social spaces of producersand consumerswithinwhich they
can emerge,develop and succeed.
To reintroducethe rule of commerce and the "commercial" into
universes that were gradually constructedagainst it is to imperil the
highestachievementsof humanity,art,literatureand even science. I do
not believe that anyone would trulywant this to happen. This is why I
evoked at the beginning Plato's famous dictum: "No one is willfully

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BOURDffiU: MASTERS OF THE WORLD

175

wicked." If it is truethatthe forcesof technologies,allied withthe forces

of the economy,the law of competitionand profit,threatenculture,what
can one do to thwartthis menace? What can one do to reinforcethe
chances of those who can exist only in the longue dure, those who, in
the manner of the impressionistpaintersof the past century,work for
posthumousrecognition,those who work to fosterthe advent of a new
kind of market,by opposition to those who meet the exigencies of the
existing market and who reap large immediate profits, material or
symbolic,such as prizes, decorationsand posts in academies?
I would like to convince you- but it would take more time than I
have to do so- that the quest for maximum immediate profitdoes not
necessarily obey the logic of an enlarged notion of self-interest(intrt
bien compris) when it comes to books, movies or paintings.To identify
the search for maximum profitwith the quest for the largest possible
audience is to take the risk of losing existing consumers in order to
conquer new ones, of losing the loyaltyof the restrictedpublic of those
who read a lot, who go frequentlyto museumsand theaters,or who see a
lot of films,withoutforthat necessarilygaining new occasional readers
or spectators. Given that we know that, at least in the developed
countries,the numberof years of schooling and the average educational
level are rising continually,and with them all the practices strongly
correlatedwiththe possession of culturalcapital, one has reason to think
that a policy of economic investmentin "quality" culturalproducts and
producers can and would, in the medium run, be profitable,even in
economic terms(on conditionthatit can relyon an effectiveeducational
system).
Thus the choice before us is not one between, on the one hand,
"globalization," thatis, uttersurrenderto the laws of commerce,and thus
to the rule of the "commercial,"which is always contraryto what is more
or less universally understood as culture,and, on the other hand, the
defenseof nationalculturesor this or thatformof culturalnationalismor
localism. The "kitsch" productsof commercial "globalization," typified
movies packed withspecial effects,or yetby
by action or family-friendly,
the marketfictionof "world fiction"whose authorscan be indifferently
Italian, Indian, English, or whatever,is in every respect opposed to the
autonomous productsof the literary,artistic,or cinematic international,
whose centeris everywhereand nowhere (even thoughit was for a long
time,and perhaps still is, based in Paris, centerof a nationaltraditionof
artisticinternationalism,as well as in London and New York). Justas
Joyce, Faulkner, Kafka, Beckett or Gombrowicz, pure products of
Ireland, the SouthernUnited States, Czechoslovakia or Poland, made it
and were made in Paris, so many contemporary filmmakers
Manuel
de
Kaurismaki,
Oliveira, Satyajit Ray, Kieslowski, Woody
Allen, Kiarostami and many others- would not exist today as they do

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JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

withoutthis literaryand artisticinternationalwhose headquartersis the

City of Light. Because it is there,for strictlyhistoricalreasons that the
history of cultural fields readily reveals, that the self-regulated
microcosm of producers,critics,and educated consumers necessary for
its survivalemerged long ago and was able to endure.6
It takes, I repeat,several centuriesto produce producerscapable
of producing works destined for posthumous markets. The question,
then,is not, as if oftenmistakenlystated,thatof an opposition between
"globalization" or globalism that would stand on the side of economic
and commercial power, and also of progress and modernity,and
nationalism,linkedto formsof culturalpreservationof sovereignty.It is,
rather,a matterof strugglebetween commercialforces aiming to extend
to the entireuniverse the particularinterestsof commerce and of those
who control it, and cultural resistance founded on the defense of the
universalworks produced by the denationalized internationalof cultural
creators.
I would like to close with an historicalanecdote, which also has
to do with speed, and which says well what should in my view be the
relationsbetween an art freedfromthe pressuresof commerce and the
powers that be. It is said that Michelangelo was so little concerned to
respect the protocol of his day in his dealings with Pope Jules II, his
patron,thatthe Pope had to hurryto sit himselfdown lest Michelangelo
sit down before him. In a sense, one could say that I triedto perpetuate
here,in a verymodest but veryfaithfulmanner,the traditioninaugurated
by Michelangelo of distance fromthe powers thatbe and especially from
those new powers bornof the conjugatedforcesof money and the media.

6 1 am
drawinghereon theanalysesofPascale Casanova in herbook La Rpublique
mondialedes lettres(Paris,Editionsdu Seuil, 1999).

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