自美國影視產業史再探閱聽人商品論的政治經濟脈絡

Revisiting the Background of Audience Commodity Theory in the History of the US Audiovisual Industry

根據美國電視業的發展，Dallas Smythe在1970年代後提出影響傳媒政治經濟分析的閱聽人商品論。本文藉進一步探察其產業資料，指出廣告所得並不能支持節目製作，單獨依賴廣告支持亦有害影視商品的差別訂價。因此提出再思考理論合宜性的三個面向：其一，所謂的唯物分析獨沽閱聽人活動而忽略其他。其二，資本主義體制對廣告的依賴有待商榷。其三，生產性與非生產性活動的混淆，導致分析資本主義發展的盲點。最後本文認為，若重新以生產活動為念，或有益於更新閱聽人商品論在新媒體時代的適用性。

 

According to the materialist investigation of the US audiovisual industry, Dallas Smythe proposed the influential "audience commodity theory (ACT)," which is revisited in this article by analyzing industrial data. The current findings indicate that advertising revenue is insufficient to support content production and that the exclusive ad-support model is detrimental to the price discrimination of content, which is necessary for the modern audiovisual industry. This article proposes three limitations of the ACT: First, the so-called materialist analysis of ACT focuses on audiences’ activities only. Second, the effectiveness of advertising revenue may be exaggerated in the theory. Third, confusing the line between productive and unproductive processes leads to the blind spot of political economy analysis. Accordingly, this article concludes that ACT can focus on the productive activities of content production, particularly in new media, to improve its usefulness.