Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud is more typically associated with psychology than he is studies of the media. Yet Freud’s ideas, especially those associated with fundamental human drives, the role of humor, repressed sexual urges, and regression, can be utilized as the theoretical basis for studies of advertising, cinema, and other forms of media content. This volume is the first of its kind to examine Freud, his central ideas, and the applicability of his theories to studying media and popular culture. It begins with a brief biography, followed by a discussion of his main theories and methods, examples of how media scholars have applied his ideas, and finally, an example of application of his theory of sex and sexuality to cinema through example in the film Melancholia (von Trier, 2011), for studying advertising, and a public relations event.

This book is not intended to be a biography of Freud, a deep analysis of his theories and practice, nor resolution of controversies about his ideas. There are dozens of volumes that take on the finer points of depth, description, and debate. Through wide correspondences, note keeping, and books, Freud’s ideas are widely available and accessible. Freud was a good writer and there are many translations.¹ Instead, this book is meant as an overview of the psychoanalytic perspective with a focus on how it can contribute and be applied to studying media. Whether his theories were or are accurate or appropriate I agree with biographer Peter Gay (2006, p. ix) who writes that we are “duty bound to find his work epochal in its importance, no matter how many details of his work will need amendment.” Interestingly, Freud himself often revised his theories, much to the chagrin of some of his critics. Importantly, “He recognized that humans—all humans—must face the dilemma of civilization. For civilization is at once humankind’s greatest achievement and its greatest tragedy. It requires individuals to control their impulses, deny their wishes, limit their lusts” (p. ix).

Freud’s theories and practices, upon which many psychologists and social psychologists developed their own work, provide fertile ground from which ideas about human motivation, personality, and social order grew. In agreement with de Berg (2003, p. 2), I argue that Freud’s psychoanalysis “is first and foremost a critical theory of society” (ital. orig.).² While he did not take on the media directly, he was of course aware of radio, books, newspapers, and cinema. Terms with very specific clinical meaning have lived on beyond him in popular parlance such as Freudian slip, neurotic, libido, repression, catharsis, and anal (personality) (described in greater detail in Chapter 3).

There are those who criticize taking popular culture seriously. What people use for entertainment, for example, has, in some camps, been disregarded as not worthy of serious attention. And yet, I argue, what could be more valuable than examining an industry worth billions of dollars, with global impact, and that employs hundreds of thousands of people? And among those same people are billions of individuals who get something from the experience of consuming media (and ancillary services such as public relations and advertising). What goes into the production and consumption of those products certainly resonates individually and collectively. While Horkheimer and Adorno (2002) famously argued that popular culture and the culture industries “degrade[s] its viewers to mere consumers and condemn[s] them to intellectual stagnation through their manipulatory attempt” (p. 1013), it is my view that the very process of getting inside someone’s head is worthy of analysis particularly psychological study. As a media and cultural studies scholar, I, as well as others (Bainbridge, 2014; Barker & Jane, 2016; Yates, 2014), see the mediated environment as rich in meaning construction as well as resistance. Whether active or passive, audiences consume media for reasons that might only be understood through a psychoanalytic lens. That meaning is encoded (drawing on Hall, 1973, 1993) by creators of content also offers an opportunity to examine societal and individual motivations when audiences decode that same content. Yet support from the psychoanalytic community for studying media and popular culture is even more significant. This recognition from therapists and scholars is particularly valuable. Examples include the book series Psychoanalysis and Popular Culture which began in 2009 (Taylor & Francis), Poscheschnik’s 2018 study of Game of Thrones, and MacRury and Rustin’s (2013) look at Dr. Who). Freud’s theories and expansion into psychoanalytic theory are perhaps particularly qualified to examine media “by offering a comprehensive theory about the human condition, that is, dealing with the dynamics of mental processes, the intersubjective nature of the e self, and the relation between individual and society” (Poscheschnik, 2018, p. 1014). The ability of a psychoanalytic lens to peer below manifest/surface/connotative levels reveals latent/below surface/denotative meanings which can “enrich the understanding of cultural phenomena in general” (p. 1014).