[Air-l] Is all Communication Commercial?

[Jeremy Hunsinger]

I'd just say 'no', but then say... it varies as per the level of  
analysis.  if you drive, as Bataille and Baudrillard and others do,  
the location of exchange into the system of relations of  
signification, then the mode of production, or the hegemonic strategy  
of capitalism, or whatever you want to ascribe as ideological  
function inhabits that exchange, so if you think that there is a  
unified hegemony or a singular mode of production, and that is  
commercial, then yes All communication is commercial  by relation to  
the series of definitions that you could use.    So the level of  
analysis above is the ontological level, existence as a sign requires  
exchange, and exchange is structured by 'ideology'.  If you move out  
to systems of knowledge, you can make the same argument, but you can  
rely on different axioms.

I'm not really comfortable trying to locate this as an quantitive  
question though...  i see it more as an interpretative and empirical  
question framed by your axioms.