Summary:
This thesis argues that class analysis contains important tools for analysing contemporary socio-economic inequality in the new media environment. For research seeking to promote the reduction of inequality, the Marxian class analytical tradition has two important features: i) it identifies collectively-held interests in contrast to the methodological individualism of neo-classical economics, thus providing a basis for political action; and ii) it understands those interests as relational and socially constituted, and therefore processual and able to be changed. Class analysis has declined in effectiveness due to its failure to respond to critiques emanating from identity-based "new social movements" (e.g. feminism, anti-racism, etc.). These critiques have required "universalist" social theory such as classical Marxism to reflexively understand its cultural and historical specificity. I argue that such an understanding is becoming possible through analysis of the role of information in the economy. The evidence suggests that the economy is fundamentally a cultural/informational entity, rather than a base for a cultural/ideological superstructure. The thesis attempts to rethink the fundamental processes of class theory from a cultural perspective to yield a class analytical framework that will be useful for those excluded from the dominant networks of economic and cultural exchange.

Chapters in PDF format:

• Acknowledgements, Table of contents (96kB)
  
• Chapter One: Social Theory after the Decline of “Theory” (320kB)
  How this theoretical project came about, comments on qualitative methodology and ethnography.
  
• Chapter Two: Class Analysis and Contemporary Life (344kB)
  A patchy summary of the class analysis literature and issues raised by it.
  
• Chapter Three: The Information Society: Knowledge in the Economy (328kB)
  A fairly solid run through the literature on information and the economy. This will be developed for publication at some point.
  
• Chapter Four: Class Relations and the New Media Environment (356kB)
  A class framework for analysing power and inequality in informational environments. A revised version has been submitted to the Journal of Media and Cultural Politics.
  
• Chapter Five: A New Class? Concluding Notes (152kB)
  The role of class theory in "real life".
  
• References (193kB)

Or you can download the entire thesis (PDF 1.3MB)

If you find this thesis useful, have comments or suggestions, or have cited it, I'd be grateful if you'd let me know by e-mailing: danny at dannybutt.net