Abstraction and Concreteness in Relation to Communication

Communication is a social process where information is shared, interpreted and evolved, it's mediated through visuals, by images or appearances, and languages, whether speaking or writing. Visual communication functions as a form of abstraction, it severs images from their histories and contradictions, replacing more concrete communication with aesthetics that can't give proper context. In comparison, language has the capacity to be more concrete; it can name relations, hold contradictions and use a near infinite amount of words to be as precise as possible. Moreover, through the sedimentation of modern society and media, all images and certain words are now commodities whether they're selling a product or pushing an idea. This process abstracts images further by making them uniaccentual, the domination of one definition over a word or image, decreasing the possible range of interpretation.

Images don't communicate meaning independently, their meanings are imposed through repeated exposure and sedimentation, the process by which common sense is built from all the stimuli received throughout life. Abstraction is the isolation of a specific feature of an object or idea that neglects its necessary context. Sedimentation abstracts visuals further by reducing humans to their appearance and sorting them into pre-existing categories. When talking about advertising as part of common symbolic culture, Schudson writes “Advertising surrounds us and enters into us, so that when we speak we may speak in or with reference to the language of advertising and when we see we may see through schemata that advertising has made salient for us”(Schudson, 210). While writing about abstract people, Schudson also says “The actor or model doesn't play a particular person but a social type or a demographic category…she is to represent either the middle-American housewife or the affluent-American housewife, but never a particular person”(Schudson, 212). Schudson emphasizes “a particular person” because everyday interactions involve particular people, yet media reduces them to social types, a flattening that extends to daily life where appearance alone invites abstract claims about others. Regardless of how correctly visual cues are read, images themselves are abstract, for instance if a picture were taken while an ice cream cone was thrown away, one might form the opinion that vanilla is disliked, but the true context can't be known.

Language isn't immune to abstraction, it's susceptible to many interpretations and commodification but unlike images it has the capacity to correct itself, name relations, and achieve a precision that visuals can't. “In the essential movement of the spectacle, which consists of taking up within itself all that existed in human activity in a fluid state, in order to possess it in a coagulated state…we recognize our old enemy, the commodity” (Debord, 35). As language is a form of human activity, Debord implies it's equally subject to this commodification, and similarly to Voloshinov, a word's fundamental meaning can be redefined or charged through sedimentation. This is a direct example of abstraction because a specific meaning pushed upon a word neglects that word's history, context and relations. Words carrying more meaning than they can handle also become abstract, as the lack of a shared definition makes the whole picture impossible to grasp. For instance, using the word fascism without clarification leaves an unclear understanding due to differing sedimentation between parties. Debord says “It(the spectacle) is the opposite of dialogue” (Debord, 18). Since the spectacle, dependent on abstract communication, is the opposite of dialogue, language serves as a comparatively more concrete form of communication, given its capacity to specify meaning and set aside particular sedimentation despite also being subject to commodification.

Images becoming more abstract isn't accidental. The concentrated spectacle is a function of power that relies on intentional sedimentation to impose a singular definition onto subjects. This produces a supraclass of people who uniformly interpret stimuli rather than utilizing dialectical examination, the process of understanding a phenomenon through its relations, contradictions and underlying conditions rather than its imposed meaning. Debord writes “The attitude which it demands in principle is this passive acceptance, which in fact it has already obtained by its manner of appearing without reply, by its monopoly of appearance”(Debord, 12). Debord is saying that through a single class's control of the monopoly of appearance produces passive acceptance before dialectical examination can take place. The spectacle's monopoly of appearance is a monopoly over communication, by controlling what appears and what definitions circulate, the ruling class determines what is said, understood and interpreted. Schudson reinforces this coerced passive acceptance by saying that people see through a “schemata that advertising has made salient for us”(Schudson, 210). Debord shows the effects of the spectacle, writing “the more he accepts recognizing himself in the dominant images of need, the less he understands his own existence and his own desires” (Debord, 30). Debord is saying that abstract communication, more so visual but language as well, leads to dissociation from oneself and genuine desires as the spectator continues to accept the spectacle. A dominant institution can use abstract communication to make its interpretation feel like common sense. When the population absorbs that interpretation without examining its origins, the institution's power becomes easier to maintain.

In conclusion, language and visuals exist on a spectrum between abstract and concrete, but where language retains the capacity to move toward concreteness through specificity and examination, visuals are capped. They can't contextualize themselves or name their own conditions. Schudson demonstrates that sedimentation trains perception, flattening humans into categories and making abstract visual interpretation feel accurate. Debord extends this, showing that the spectacle commodifies all human activity, turning images and language into uniaccentual definitions that serve an intentional power. This process deliberately exploits sedimentation to produce a supraclass whose common sense has been engineered by the elite. The conscious customization of appearance to signal what one identifies with is a sedimented abstraction actively reproduced by society. This confidence in personal sedimentation unintentionally extends to what the spectacle imposed, leading to the neglect of dialectical examination.