Media Theory

The Communication of Capital: Digital Media and the Logic of Acceleration

by Atle Mikkola Kjøsen

Manzerolle, Vincent and Kjosen, Atle Mikkola (2012). TripleC 10(2):214-229. Special Issue: Marx is Back – The Importance of Marxist Theory and Research for Critical Communication Studies Today.

This paper argues that questions concerning the circulation of capital are central to the study of contemporary and... more This paper argues that questions concerning the circulation of capital are central to the study of contemporary and future media under capitalism. Moreover, it argues that such questions have been central to Marx’s analysis of the reproduction of capital vis-à-vis the realization of value and the reduction of circulation time. Marx’s concepts of both the circuit and circulation of capital implies a theory of communication. Thus the purpose of our paper is to outline the logistical mechanisms that underlie a Marxist theory of media and communication and thereby foregrounding the role new media plays in reducing circulation time. We argue that the necessity of theorizing communication from a circuit and circulation-centric point of view stems from the emergence of a number of new technological phenomena that intensify, but sometimes undermine, the capitalist logic of acceleration. For the purposes of understanding the evolution of digital technologies, ostensibly employed to accelerate the circulation of capital—or put differently, to reduce circulation time—we need to pay attention to volume 2 of Capital, and key sections in the Grundrisse.

Rethinking Mass Communication Theories in the Internet Era

by Simon Columbus

Mutsvairo, B., Klamroth, L., & Columbus, S. (2012). Rethinking Mass Communication Theories in the Internet Era. In N. Ekekwe & N. Islam, Disruptive Technologies, Innovation and Global Redesign: Emerging Implications. Hershey, PA: IGI Global.

This study examines three classical theories of mass communication to support a hypothesis suggesting that in the age... more This study examines three classical theories of mass communication to support a hypothesis suggesting that in the age of Internet, these theories are fast becoming extraneous. Theories to be analysed are the cultivation, agenda-setting, and media systems dependence theories. By interviewing over 100 university students based at Amsterdam University College, the authors hope to establish their media behaviours and practices, effectively verifying or disproving the argument that Web technology is masterminding a new revolution, which is uncharacteristically making these theories null and void.

Interview with Leila Nadir and Cary Peppermint of Ecoarttech

by Leila C. Nadir

Furtherfield.org Interview with Sophia Kosmaoglou - 20/04/2012

Refusing to regard technology merely as a tool, Ecoarttech expand the uses of mobile technology and digital networks... more Refusing to regard technology merely as a tool, Ecoarttech expand the uses of mobile technology and digital networks revealing them to be fundamental components of the way we experience our environment. Their most recent work Indeterminate Hikes + (IH +) is a phone app that maps a series of trails through the city. IH + can be accessed globally, or wherever users have access to Google Maps on their mobile phones. After identifying the users’ location, IH + generates a route along random “Scenic Vistas" within urban spaces. Users are directed to perform a series of tasks along the trail and provide feedback in the form of snapshots generating an ongoing, open-ended dialogue. But the experience of their work is primarily an encounter with technology. Since 2005, Leila Nadir and Cary Peppermint of Ecoarttech have been engaged in an artistic exploration of environmental sustainability and convergent media. By drawing our attention to the increasing replacement or mediation of physical experiences by technology, Ecoarttech challenge the widely reproduced distinction between nature and culture. They present their work in the form of videos, digital networks, blogs, performance and installations. Their early video-based work (Wilderness Trouble and Frontier Mythology) plays out a performative and ironic encounter with the natural environment as a historically constructed concept. In the summer of 2005 Ecoarttech made A Series of Practical Performances in the Wilderness (2005) a database networked performance in QuickTime (DVD and Podcast).

Estratégias de Comunicação Política Online: Uma Análise do Perfil de José Serra no Twitter / Political Campaigns and Online Strategies: The case of the 2010 Brazilian Elections

by Francisco Paulo Jamil Marques

Co-authored with Fernando Wisse and Nina Matos. Published in Revista Contemporanea. vol.09 – n.03 – setembro-dezembro 2011.

Title in English: Political Campaigns and Online Strategies:
The case of the 2010 Brazilian Elections. Text in... more Title in English: Political Campaigns and Online Strategies:
The case of the 2010 Brazilian Elections. Text in Portuguese. Abstract in English: This article examines some of the main changes that Brazilian elections have faced thanks to the new media. More specifically, it studies how the candidate José Serra (PSDB, Brazilian Social Democracy Party) used Twitter over the 2010 presidential race. The text analyzes the new behaviors perceived once the digital media play an important role in getting votes. Are there new methods to run political campaigns? Or indeed one sees the continuity in the ways to reach voters? The study investigates the messages (tweets) posted by José Serra (@ joseserra_) during the 15 days before the 2nd round of presidential elections (17 to October 31, 2010). The empirical sample is based on the 221 messages posted by the candidate in the chosen period of time. On the one hand, we can say that the use of Twitter becomes important (a) to promote the public image of Serra; (b) to build a network with thousands of users willing to support him; and (c) to stimulate informal styles of interaction. On the other hand, it becomes evident that electoral strategies, even on Twitter, remain constrained by traditional conceptions of political marketing. KEYWORDS: Democracy. Elections. Internet. Online Campaigns. Twitter.

Technological Infestation—Human Becoming Insect: Parikka’s Insect Media

by Mark Coté

Review of Jussi Parikka, Insect Media: An Archaeology of Animals and Technology. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010. 281 pp. US $25 (Paper). ISBN: 9780816667406
Theory & Event, Volume 15, Issue 1, 2012

Visões Midiáticas e Identidade Comunicacional na América Latina

by Sonia Regina Soares da Cunha

Published in Vol. 1, nº 8, p. 11-17, da Revista Brasileira de Ensino de Jornalismo REBEJ - publicação quadrimestral do Fórum Nacional de Professores de Jornalismo, é uma revista científica que tem como objetivo debater e divulgar a pesquisa realizada sobre ensino de jornalismo.
http://www.fnpj.org.br/rebej/ojs/index.php/rebej

“Sociedade, Teorias da Mídia e Audiovisual na América Latina” é um livro instigante, pois recupera estudos... more “Sociedade, Teorias da Mídia e Audiovisual na América Latina” é um livro instigante, pois recupera estudos contemporâneos, agrega conhecimentos interdisciplinares e, principalmente, convida o leitor para uma reflexão sobre a Identidade Comunicacional na América Latina. Trata-se de uma obra abrangente, não só pelo conjunto de capítulos escritos em português, inglês e espanhol, por acadêmicos de renomadas instituições internacionais, como também pela ampla perspectiva conceitual teórica que sustenta a estrutura do livro. A densidade, entretanto, ganha fluidez na diversidade dos temas que trafegam desde a recuperação histórica da CIESPAL, passando pelos estereótipos nos comerciais da televisão americana, até os meandros da vida ilegal na fronteira do México com os Estados Unidos.

Rhetoric of Space: Cityscape/Landscape

by Nanna Verhoeff

With Eva Warth
Published in the Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television (http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/carfax/01439685.html)

"The purpose of this issue is to propose a re-examination of non-Žfiction film through the perspective of Early... more "The purpose of this issue is to propose a re-examination of non-Žfiction film through the perspective of Early Cinema. While the distinction between Žfiction and non-Žfiction is arguably a problematic one, it still proves to be a highly popular heuristic tool in media studies. Our article demonstrates ways in which a historical assessment of these categories may open up new perspectives on this dichotomy. The starting point of our
article is the assumption that in Early Cinema, issues of non-Ž ction—and by implication: Ž ction—are anchored in the construction of space, which is articulated as landscape and cityscape. Although we propose to discuss the central aspects of early non-Ž ction through two pairs of oppositions—non-Ž ction/Ž ction and landscape/cityscape—we will not repeat the now all too familiar deconstruction of binary oppositions, but instead we will explore the productiveness of these oppositions, both
individually and in relation to each other. Rather than grounding their difference in ontology, we will focus on the way they function discursively. We therefore propose to locate their operation in rhetoric. As each category acquires sense through the opposition to the other, each representation is necessarily rhetorical whereby our double set of oppositions work in conjunction: the engineering of space is achieved by an
intriguing rhetoric of Žfiction and non-fiction."

Grasping the Screen: Towards a Conceptualization of Touch, Mobility and Multiplicity.

by Nanna Verhoeff

Digital Material: Tracing New Media in Everyday Life and Technology. Sybille Lammes, Ann-Sophie Lehmann, Joost Raessens, Mirko Tobias Schaefer (eds.) Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2009: 209-222

Televisual modes of subject formation and the 'urban' brand of Bengali cinema (unpublished)

by Abhijit Roy

Written paper presented at ‘Enter the Public Domain', an international conference organized by ‘Sarai: the New Media Initiative’ and Centre for Studies in Developing Societies, Delhi; Delhi, February 23, 2001.

Comment on the paper by Ravi Vasudevan in the conference report (http://www.sarai.net/resources/event-proceedings/2001/enter-the-public-domain/more-reports#cinemaandthecity)

Abhijit Roy's paper focused on the new, globalized media context in which cultural hierarchies were being reformulated in Calcutta. Roy situated his argument within the longer history of bhadralok cultural ascendancy, especially through paradigms of literary naturalism and realism which had been carried on into the domain of the cinema. He argued that new media and consumer cultures had provided new challenges and opportunities for a reformulation of this cultural authority which had historically placed a particular value on the command over information. The escalating amount of information available through news channels made news itself a domain to exercise authority over, and through which to demonstrate a capacity to enter new domains of knowledge. One of the effects of this drive, in Roy's formulation, is to problematize the relationship between public and private in social life, the private in a sense opened upto scrutiny by the public gaze. Roy relates this reformulation of authority to a new consumer culture which has its ramifications not only in broadcasting but in print culture. Drawing out the implications of this new cultural situation for the cinema, Roy highlighted two key figures in recent cinema, Aparna Sen and Rituparna Ghosh who edit important magazines and have made films which heavily reference journalism and demonstrate a new drive to penetrate hitherto screened off private spaces for the refashioning of cultural knowledge and authority.

Excerpt:
...the all pervasive role of Media in publicizing the ‘private’ (not restricted to ‘famous’... more Excerpt:
...the all pervasive role of Media in publicizing the ‘private’ (not restricted to ‘famous’ personalities but extending to the plebeian as well) acts against the subjectivity of the privileged citizen. Contemporary media renders every person an ‘object’, a space to be excavated for news. The supposed omniscience of the citizen or the capability of the subject to ‘comment’ on various issues, in fact, is challenged by a super-subject who keeps an watch over and takes care (by immediately reporting it) of every little vibration in the day-to-day flow of time. The very “democratic” nature of the televisual flow, its vulnerability to being theoretically available to ‘anyone’ further intensifies this contest. The Media is really othered and personified in quotidian conversations(“The media is no fool” or “media has suppressed this”). In sum, the ownership of satellite television or access to the internet produces a subject who is always torn between two contradictory senses: a promised omniscience/empowerment on one side and a threat towards this especially from the record-mode. This in turn triggers a typical perspective—or the embodiment of a point-of-view—which we would here call the ‘Citygen’ (combining the ‘city’ and the ‘gent/gentry’ and at the same time keeping ‘citizen’ which is indispensable in this identity). Media here is the space of aspiration because the citygen desires to attain the former’s omniscience and simultaneously an entity to be contested because it has challenged (by its universal availability theoretically) the erstwhile supremacy of a cultural/economic community, a superiority based on ‘knowledge’. ‘Citygen’ is of course an epistemological identity but with limitations, a transitory position embedded in present continuous whose identity is not resolved as yet.

Object as vortex: Marshall McLuhan and material culture as media of communication

by Roman Onufrijchuk

Pre-specifics. Considering the Design of Mediality

by Vera Bühlmann

in: Freek Lomme, Michael Capio (Eds.): Pre-specifics: Access X! Onomatopee 52, Eindhoven 2010, S. 15-33. prov. version (engl.)

A Life Lived In Media

by Mark Deuze

Co-authored with Peter Blank (BlankMediation, Chicago) and Laura Speers (King's College, London), published in the peer-reviewed, open access journal Digital Humanities Quarterly (Winter 2012).

Research since the early years of the 21st century consistently shows that through the years more of our time gets... more Research since the early years of the 21st century consistently shows that through the years more of our time gets spent using media, that being concurrently exposed to media has become a foundational feature of everyday life, and that consuming media for most people increasingly takes place alongside producing media. Contemporary media devices, what people do with them, and how all of this fits into the organization of our everyday life disrupt and unsettle well-established views of the role media play in society. Instead of continuing to wrestle with a distinction between media and society, this contribution proposes we begin our thinking with a view of life not lived with media, but in media. The media life perspective starts from the realization that the whole of the world and our lived experience in it are framed by, mitigated through, and made immediate by (immersive, integrated, ubiquitous and pervasive) media.

Subject of Desire/Subject of Drive: The Emergence of Zizekian Media Studies

by Matthew Flisfeder

Reviews in Cultural Theory (Forthcoming, February 2012).

Review Essay on:
Jodi Dean, Blog Theory
Paul A. Taylor, Zizek and the Media
Fabio Vighi, Sexual... more Review Essay on:
Jodi Dean, Blog Theory
Paul A. Taylor, Zizek and the Media
Fabio Vighi, Sexual Difference in European Cinema

Tomáš Dvořák: Sběrné suroviny: texty, obrazy a zvuky nedávné minulosti

by Anna Kopecka

From Psychedelics to Cybernetics – Wie Timothy Leary und Marshall McLuhan sich den Umgang mit Medien beibrachten

by Florian Sprenger

The apparatus and its constituencies: On India’s encounters with television

by Abhijit Roy

Published in Journal of the Moving Image, Number 4, November, 2005.

In my attempt at exploring possible connections between nation and the television ‘form’, I have in this essay tried... more In my attempt at exploring possible connections between nation and the television ‘form’, I have in this essay tried to track a major trajectory in television studies, that of the theoretical investments in the formal aspects of the televisual experience. The essay heavily draws upon the recent debates around the notion of ‘flow’ in the work of Raymond Williams and relates them to another movement which is also, not surprisingly, called ‘flow’ i.e. the flow of programs and programming from one country to the other, the most familiar route being from the North America to the rest of the world. The object is to investigate whether television inclines towards offering a specific kind of experience, whether, to put it more precisely, television comes closer to being an ‘ideological apparatus’. We try to locate the Indian context—with its particular histories of performance—vis-à-vis this apparatus and show that, to a large extent, the so called ‘pre-capitalist’ traits in the Indian popular performative traditions are homologous with what western theorists try to specify (though in contradicting terms) as a somewhat ‘central’ televisual experience. One of the main aims is to account for this correspondence of televisual form to the heteronomous popular of the territories that consistently refuse to harbour fully bourgeoised state-form and that continue to be highly heterogeneous in production relations. The paper tries to investigate into the specific imports of this relation in the post-liberalization cultural lives of television in India with special reference to a somewhat novel way television has started imagining the nation. I shall draw upon various instances from the history of television in India to demonstrate the currency of this dialogue between the pre-television modes of addresses and the televisual flow in the constitution of televisual subjects in India. The significance of the Indian popular film form in lending a major legacy to televisual reception would be a key area of concern. The series of works in Indian Film Studies over the last twenty years, in their insistent emphasis on the political economy of popular audio-visual cultures, gives the paper a major point of entry into the study of location of the televisual apparatus in a post-colonial context.

The participatory turn in the publishing industry: Rethorics and practices (2011)

by Francesca Pasquali

Special CM Journal Issue ‘Interrogating audiences: Theoretical horizons of participation’, edited by Nico Carpentier & Peter Dahlgren,
BROJ/NUMBER 21 GODINA/YEAR VI ZIMA/WINTER 2011.

The special journal issue ‘Interrogating audiences: Theoretical horizons of participation’, edited by Nico Carpentier & Peter Dahlgren has just been published in the academic journal CM (Communication Management Quarterly). This peer-reviewed special issue aims to contribute to the development of participatory theory within the framework of communication and media studies. As always, this requires careful manoeuvring to reconcile conceptual contingency with the necessary fixity that protects the concept of participation from signifying anything and everything. In order to deepen the theorisations of participation, two strategies have been used in this special issue: In a first cluster of articles, the concept of participation will be confronted with another theoretical concept or tradition that will enrich the theoretical development of participation. In the second cluster of articles, the workings of the notion of participation will be analysed within a specific topical field, which will allow deepening participatory theory by confronting participation with the contextualised logics of that topical field.

Summary: One of the cultural and media areas in which the issue of participa- tion – with all its ambiguity – has... more Summary: One of the cultural and media areas in which the issue of participa- tion – with all its ambiguity – has recently emerged to full significance is the area of literature and publishing. Following the music, film and television industries, the pub- lishing industry is in fact facing a vast renewal due to digitalization processes (assuming digitalization as a complex negotiation between social and technological forces). New textual formats and devices (such as e-books), new forms of distribution (e.g. online retailing), new marketing strategies (e.g. in the social media), new models of business (e.g. the print on demand) are becoming increasingly popular. At the same time digi- talization has enabled the creation of a whole new participatory, grassroots publishing market, while grassroots storytelling and social media (e.g. Twitter, Facebook), used as a collaborative writing environment, bring out participatory forms of online writing that continue the tradition started almost fifteen years ago by the so-called “hypertextual fiction” and the avant-gardes before that. In this context, by addressing the theoretical debate and recent social discourses on the e-book, this article suggests a recognition of the diversity of the forms of participation that are ascribed to the new publishing scenario. Secondly – moving from the Foucauldian notion of author-function – the article solic- its the relationship between author and reader in the contemporary digital publishing scenario and addresses the question whether and under what conditions the supposed participatory turn in writing and publishing we are facing promotes the construction of a polyphonic, co-authored, recognizable, collaborative dialogue, or rather points to a cultural landscape where “all discourses [...] would develop in the anonymity of a murmur” (Foucault, 1969).

FCJ-121 Transversalising the Ecological Turn: Four Components of Felix Guattari's Ecosophical Perspective

by John Tinnell

Published in The Fibreculture Journal (Issue 18, 2011)

Teoría dialógica de la comunicación: devolver al hombre-con-el-hombre al centro de la investigación / Dialogic Theory of Communication, or how human relationship belongs to the core of the definition of communication

by Álvaro Abellán-García Barrio

Este artículo expone sintéticamente las pretensiones de la Teoría dialógica de la comunicación (TDC). Esta teoría... more Este artículo expone sintéticamente las pretensiones de la Teoría dialógica de la comunicación (TDC). Esta teoría pretende configurar un corpus disciplinar que integre las teorías e investigaciones particulares, ordenándolas entre sí y orientándolas al desarrollo integral de la persona en su vida social. Para ello, sitúa al hombre en el centro de su reflexión y extrae las consecuencias que se derivan de ello. La TDC entra en diálogo con las diversas perspectivas que han abordado la Teoría de la Comunicación, se asienta en la firmeza de la filosofía perenne y se inspira en el pensamiento existencial, relacional, personalista y dialógico.

This paper is an attempt to present briefly the claims of the dialogic theory of communication (TDC). The goal of this theory is to get a basic corpus of the discipline in which different theories and researches are integrated, organized and aimed towards the full development of the individual in society. To achieve this, TDC places human being at the centre of its reflection and draws the consequences of doing do. TDC engages itself in a conversation with different approaches to the study of Communication Theory, is founded on the strength of the perennial philosophy and is heavily inspired by the existential, relational, personalist and dialogical thinking.

The Pre-Historic Turn?: Networked New Media, Mobility and the Body

by Mark Coté

Final Draft
To Be Published in The International Companions to Media Studies: Media Studies Futures, Kelly Gates (Ed.), Oxford UK: Blackwell, 2012 Forthcoming

This chapter considers the increasingly important dimensions of location and mobility in networked new media. It... more This chapter considers the increasingly important dimensions of location and mobility in networked new media. It examines the relationship between the human and technology by foregrounding the body. In particular, it ask how the mediated materiality of the body interfaces with the immateriality of global information flows in ubiquitous distributed media environments. Three main threads comprise this inquiry, all unfolding under the spectre of the increasing precarity of labour amidst the broader temporal and spatial dimensions of the information economy under neo-liberal globalisation. The first two involve hallmarks of Web 2.0: the conflation of work and play; and, the prominence of user-generated content. These are situated in the deeper context of convergence by tracing the conceptual shift from the passive 'audience commodity' of broadcasting to the interactive immaterial labour 2.0 of distributed digital networks. The final, interdisciplinary line counter-intuitively takes a 'pre-historic turn' via paleoanthropology to reevaluate the ubiquitous connectivity of our contemporary condition. Fresh insights from our earliest use of stone tools suggest that the human has always already had a mutually constitutive relationship with technology. It also suggests the concepts of syntax and grammar for posing new questions about the sensuousness of technology, and the processual mediated environment of the (non)local body.