Writing in the middle of the twentieth century, Lazarsfeld’s agenda centers around an attempt to break apart the hypodermic needle model of communication. Traditionally, models of communication identified a mass media machine that broadcasts information onto a willing and waiting public. These broadcasts are both immediately interpreted by the public and also contain within them an unavoidable call to action that sways public opinion (Personal Influence 16). In Personal Influence, Lazarsfeld points out that the traditional tripartite communication model of audience research, content analysis, and effect analysis is, in actuality, a hierarchical model that positions audience research and content analysis as subordinate to effect analysis (ibid 19). Moreover, communications research has continually introduced steps in between the sending of the message and the receiving (such as analyzing the content or context of the message) that has continually worn away the legitimacy of the hypodermic needle model (ibid 20).

The primary intervening variables Lazarsfeld inserts into the hypodermic needle theory in order to break it apart are exposure (coinciding with audience research), differential (linked to the changing of the message through the medium), content (analyzing the differences in effect with the differences in content), and attitudes (relating to the predisposition of audience members). All of these interventions point to an underestimation of the importance of an individual’s social attachments with respect to how she responds to mass media (ibid 25).

Lazardsfeld goes on to cite studies in which opinion and actions are not produced by mass media messages, but through the actions of individuals. His goal is to identify where the influence in these situations arises. He settles on the idea of an “opinion leader” that receives the mass media communication and relays it to the larger group. There are other players that allow this transmission to occur, though they hold less influence. Opinion carriers seek out the information and relay it to others. Information controllers have a strategic position that allows them to control the physical flow of information, such as the tavern owner who has the only radio in a small town (ibid 124-125). After Lazardsfeld’s analysis and identification of the major players in information and opinion exchange, he decides that the effectiveness of mass media with regards to an individual’s relatedness to others is primarily based on group norms and person-to-person transmission (ibid 130).

While Personal Influence looks to quantitative studies to justify the existence of opinion leaders, Lazarfeld’s “Remarks on Administrative and Critical Communications Research” clarifies the intent and motive behind the use and genesis of these studies. He identifies two types of communications research: administrative and critical (“Remarks” 8). Administrative research is carried out in the service of a public or private administrative agency. Critical research, on the other hand, develops a theory of the social trends of our time and implies ideas of underlying human values that should serve as a basis against which to judge the actual or desired effects of the research (ibid 9). For Lazarfeld, critical research is an act against the “manipulation of large masses of people” that “permeates our culture” and an attempt to regain the “spontaneity and dignity characteristic of human personality” (ibid 9-10). Critical research is not necessarily anti-scientific, but rather analyzes data and outcomes with an attempt to preserve some semblance of humanity.

The force of Lazarsfeld’s argument comes in its move to break apart the transmission-absorption model of communication theory and replace it with a much more individualistic approach. The “masses” are not an impressionistic group, but rather a collection of individuals with the

“opinion leaders” that expose the group to information and direct its actions. As such, the broadcasting and dissemination of information occurs in a manner that is more complicated but not entirely a dialogic model, involving what came to be known as the “two-step formula.” The power of opinion influence in Lazarsfeld’s model lies not in the original source of the message (the media), but in the re-disseminators, the opinion leaders.

The creation of opinion may lie in between the receivers and the transmitters, but this does not mean that there is no identifiable agency in the two-step formula. Lazarfeld’s “between” area consists of a very real, embodied individual, different from contemporary theories that would posit the creation of meaning in a disembodied space between transmitter and receiver or in the interaction between entities. Lazarsfeld’s addition of the mediating opinion leader could, to some extent, be seen as injecting Nietzschean elements into a sort of Machiavellian communication theory. Hypodermic theory organizes itself around a monarchical structure, centering all power in the princely mass media. A disembodied, headless king-that-cannot-be-killed, mass media broadcasts its message, transmitting it to the willing masses. There is only dissemination in this model, no dialogue and no potential for contrasting opinion. Any dissenters are voiceless (as are the assenters). Mass media is seen as an entity, an individual that has as its goal the loyalty of its subjects.

The two-step model moves the power in the structure from a monarchical mass media to an individual with the power to dispense messages in a certain way among a group of people. In this model the masses have not gone away. They are still the target of the message. The only thing that has changed it who controls them. In this instance, the opinion leader becomes the practical embodiment of the übermensch. An individual standing away from the masses, the übermensch/opinion leader is able to take the place of the broadcasting media, disseminating information and opinion to groups of people, who follow their leader.

Along with instituting an individualistic approach to communication theory, Lazarsfeld also championed the use of quantitative analysis. By analyzing statistics and doing appropriate research, general social trends could be exposed and, hopefully, the opinion leader could be identified. Retrospectively, this seems to be very much at odds with the logic that Lazarsfeld employs (and, indeed with much of the research methods that evolved later from his work). He points to the inability of some studies to show the “true” results (such as his analysis of the continual increase of production in a factory even when debilitating measures are taken that should decrease production), but his solution is not, as we would expect today, a wholly different method of research such as qualitative analysis but instead more positivist research. The issue with the research for Lazarsfeld is – and has always been – not a failure of science, but a failure of the human researcher to do proper science.

This sentiment is echoed in his criticism of administrative research as research without the necessary step of analyzing the effects of the subject material against fundamental human morals. Critical research is proper science and administrative research is improper science, though the data and method may look the same. Administrative research wears away humanity and presents a false view of the world. Critical research reinforces humanity and reveals the true, sometimes hidden, face of communication.

By embodying and re-attaching the head to opinion genesis through critical research, Lazarfeld is able to reinstate the hope of a modernist belief in identifiable causation. “Mass media” would be problematic for a very scientific interpretation of opinion because it is amorphous and uncontrollable as a variable. There are many media outlets and many types of media that go into “mass” media. There is, however, only one opinion leader who, through experimentation, can be identified and molded.

In his essay on critical research, Lazarsfeld calls for the subjugated method (critical research) to displace administrative research (the dominant method), asking “Why should we not learn also to be more hospitable to criticism and find forms in which more patience can be exercised to wait and, in the end, to see what is constructive and what is not” (ibid 14). The argument here is that the subjugated/critical method should be privileged precisely because it is not the dominant form. However, through Lazarfeld’s critical analysis of communication, we can see that he wants to displace the dominant paradigm (hypodermic, mass media-controlled system) with a subjugated structure (übermensch/opinion leader system) in order to identify a potentially manipulatable, embodied individual. He is merely re-configuring the modes of domination in attempt to gain control of those modes while appearing to break down a dominant power structure for the greater human good. Indeed, in the article itself, Lazarsfeld is taking the role of the opinion leader (as do all authors) and disseminating opinion among readers.

The difference in the opinion leader model rests on the belief in a core set of human values against which any action can be judged “right” or “wrong.” Capitalism, arising from modernist and positivist principles in action, and its promotional pattern of information dissemination is a skewed set of these values. The critical researcher and academic contains the ability to look through this distortion and correct it. As such, Lazarsfeld’s argument can be seen as a corrective measure to the failure of modernism either through an attempt to move it into a more “postmodern” arena in the mode of situated knowledges and grounded theory or, potentially, can indicate a nostalgic glance towards a certain protean slice of modernism before it was fully manifested yet held the potential to fix the problems of the world and achieve a utopia.

The title draws the potential reader in, seducing him with a hope of the necessary unknown. Its duty is to stand in place of the text and present the text as something exotic, untouched, incomprehensible yet a part of what the reader already experiences; that final piece that will officially seal his work or provide an unavoidable detour. From this authorized purpose, we see that the title is now becoming what it has always attempted to be – not a descriptor, but an entryway.

Before the shift in titilic conventions, the title was brief, luring the reader in with promises of an exposition. This was a promise of something quick and direct but, as with any text, a promise quickly broken with elisions and only a quick glance at that which was promised. Now, the title has moved towards something more esoteric, an erotic wink at what will follow, a motion to dive in. It attempts to obliterate the titles appearing around it in search results. The title has, in essence, become all but irrelevant except for its purpose as a stylistic brand that hangs around the neck of its corresponding text.

We see this tendency in the shift of the title from something direct – “Historical Elements in the Story of Coriolanus” – to something indirect with a slightly-more-direct qualifier – “The Unbearable Heaviness of Being Divine Shit <subtitle>Burned by the Sun • Up Your Cave! • Copernicus, Darwain, Freud… and Many Others • Toward a new Science of Appearances • Resistances to Disenchantment • When the God Comes Around • the Desublimated Object of Post-Ideology • Danger? What Danger?</subtitle>  – to the irrelevant title of the blog post with “tags” that provide specific, invisible descriptors.

It would be possible to say that with the coming technology that the anchor has been pounded out, that the title does not matter as a descriptor that hashes together the promise and the discourse (the commentary) that follows. Rather, it has become the seduction that hints at a style in which the discourse will be uncovered. It then acts against the technological tendency towards absolute categorization and segmentation provided by search engines (Google/Yahoo!/MSN specifically, JSTOR to a lesser extent). The title ceases to be a relevant indicator of what will be unveiled and acts to reclaim the loss of life and creativity in writing through a brush with the poetic.

The presentation of the “Envois” section (again, the only section I have been engaged with thus far) is a series of letters/posts/postcards to an unnamed receiver. These posts continually question the message that is sent and reference a conversation that occurs over many mediums (telephonic, collectively), a constant uncertainty that the recipient of the post actually gets the message. The cards are, in essence, love letters that sometimes miss their mark and other times hit it dead-on. The envois themselves are brilliant – conclusive and poetic, almost unbearable to read as a result. But, within their arcane expression, the missives that Derrida puts forth in these pages (which make up almost half of the work) reiterate one of the points that he can only demonstrate: that no meaning can be clearly stated, only through a constant reading of inexact writings can the meaning be grasped (but not articulated).

From this idea, his metaphor of the missile begins to make more sense. Like the post and the postcard, the missile launches from a starting point and may or may not hit its target, explode with meaning upon impact. Only with repeated attempts, reiterations of the same message sent through the postal system, the launching apparatus, can an attempt be made to make contact with the target. Some post/missiles hit, others do not. By reading the entirety of the envois, the reader continues with the assumption that amongst 250 pages of poetic endings some stanza will resonate and explain the work.

And one final note about the style of the “Envois”: it becomes apparent that it is almost impossible to discuss Derrida without becoming a successful target of his missiles, to be hit with the full force of his meaning. That meaning, unfortunately, requires that the style be replicated in its reiteration. The same terms must be employed, the same meter, and rhythm. It reacts against what the explosive power of the missile attempts to destroy. I find myself too often lapsing into this detestable state.

From this we see the second abnormality of The Postcard: its citation. Other, more straightforward works that originate with Derrida (Structure, Sign and Play comes immediately to mind) are cited in a straightforward manner: direct quotations, explications. The Postcard, however, is mentioned in passing, as a reference for those who want to know more. I am, mostly, talking about the discussions regarding archiving that will first-and-foremost cite Archive Fever and then turn to The Postcard as a supplementary source. This would seem to point to the fact that The Postcard defies the ability to be taken out of context or, indeed, to be spliced for inclusion in any context outside of itself. Or, perhaps more tellingly, its posts and missiles have slightly missed their targets. The readers of The Postcard understand that it has something to say, a message to convey, but can only understand it and cannot put it into words. As a result, the only proper reference is a diversion to the text itself, a message by a brief and momentary citation that points the reader of the (secondary, yet originary) text to the (primary, yet originary) text as a whole. Could The Postcard be a work that can only stand for itself, that can be integrated yet not misappropriated? If so, could it actually be of more importance than previously realized?

“Progress,” as a force, seeks to fix problems: dust builds up so we make a vaccuum, buildings need to be taller so we create steel girders, we need to be able to get messages from one place to another quickly so along comes the telegraph. But, as Virilio points out in his notion of the accident, much of technology (and, by extension, “progress”) serves to fix problems that the technology itself creates. The train caused the trainwreck, the plane caused the plane crash. From this, technology is created to fix or avoid the accident. Stronger tracks, the black box that reports the problem with the plane that caused the crash. Likewise, technological progress serves to eliminate deficiencies in technology, which are minor accidents in themselves, failure to perform a task perfectly. Planes get faster because they do not provide instantaneous transportation, sunglasses get polarized because of the “accident” of ultraviolet rays hitting corneas.

From this observation, we see that “progress” doesn’t really move towards anything but rather gets caught up in perpetually fixing itself and trying to fix increasingly minute problems. Any quantifiable notions of progress making life “better” are near impossible to work out. Instead, what we can gather is that “progress” is really entropy with an ethical value attached. On the one hand, progress and technological innovation purport to be a stabilizing force that works toward a stable end, a fixed telos beyond which progress will be impossible. On the other, it constantly introduces the accident, the self-reflexive deficiency that ensures progression and creates the impossibility of a closed, completely manageable system.

This entropic tendency of progress allows innovation and is a necessary by-product of being in the world. The important quality of entropy, however, is its lack of an ethical label as “good” or “bad.” It is an indifferent state that allows the unerlying operations of progress to shine through ethical categorizations. By viewing progress as merely a state of entropy that involves ethics, we see that its continuation is not necessarily a function of making life better or worse, progressing toward a perfect state, but an agent of change that encourages engagement with the world. There is not an exit that leads toward a static end; each exit is only an accident that moves towards a different, tenuous state.

The archive forms when documents come together under a heading, the heading of “psychoanalysis,” “Derrida’s writings,” or any set of words that can point to a number of documents. These headings set limits as to what can and can’t be included in the archive. They put up a loose boundary between the parts of a certain archive and everything else, whether it be documents or experiences that aren’t recorded because they don’t fit into an archive or documents that exist but do not fit the mold of the particular heading. The archive is, as Derrida says, a political social construct. More than that however, it is a unique heading, a special type of category.

Over the past decade or so, the Internet has appeared as one of the greatest means of archiving. It not only produces a renewed effort in archiving as we are enthralled (tempted) towards the reanimation of the world book project, but the medium itself relies on archiving to function. The former makes itself apparent through projects like archive.org and Wikipedia. Both serve to create a complete archive, whether of everything that has made an appearance online or of knowledge as a whole. The latter is less apparent, but occurs each time someone listens to music (a copy of an .mp3), visits a website (the site is cached in the browser), or disseminates any sort of information online. The difference between this archive and past archives, however, is its means of categorization.

The old, rigid system of categorization employed by libraries does not apply online. Books exist under the physical constraints of being under only one heading, part of one archive. They cannot physically exist in more than one place at a time and as a result their inclusion in various categories is limited. Placing information online, however, allows it to be moved easily from category to category. The information does not necessarily have to, as it is placed online, be a part of a politico-socio-cultural archive.

Nonetheless, the internet is a series of archives, much as off-line communication is. The difference we see between the two is one of speed. Online archives are constituted, just as they are offline, through categories, primarily created through search engine queries. The archive appears only between the query is returned and the user moves off of the page of results. There is no guarantee that the same archive can exist twice. Where there were once permanent, established archives there are now ad hoc archives that exist momentarily.

With this new, quickened process, we see the rise of the new archivists: SEO analysts. They are the ones who seek to guard the threshold of particular archives, manipulating websites and making them speak so as to fit into the bounds of an archive (or create a new archive altogether). By manipulating the content of the pieces of the archive the SEO archivists undermine the authority of the archive through a constant rewriting of the archive’s content. Under attack, the processes that include the content in these archives (the search engine algorithms themselves) are constantly re-written themselves to become stronger and more resistant to malicious rewrites.

The online archive and its archiving process, then, moves at a much different speed than previous archives, with much less concern with distance. The online archival speed points not to new ways of manipulating and working with content but towards processes that have been occurring all along as we have stored information as a basis of communication and reference.