The Media Environment of Political Thought

Rousseau, Marx, and the Politics of Selfies

By (author) Asaf Y. Shamis

Not available to order

Publication date:

11 October 2017

Length of book:

122 pages

Publisher

Lexington Books

ISBN-13: 9781498532945

The Media Environment of Political Thought offers a novel way of looking at the tradition of political thought by reconstructing the historical media landscapes in which great political texts of the past were produced. It brings to light the little-charted media environments in which two political innovators—Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Karl Marx—operated and analyzes both how writing systems shaped their intellectual growth, and how they used those systems to communicate their pioneering ideas. The historical analysis is followed by a critical reflection on the future of political thought in the age of computer-mediated communication. Together the three studies presented in the book conjure up a view of the tradition of political thought as highly regulated stream of information shaped by historical writing systems.

Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter One: Theoretical Framework: Writing Systems & Political Thought
Chapter Two: Imprinting the Cry of Nature: Rousseau’s Hidden Media Theory
Chapter Three: The “Industrialists of Philosophy”: Marx, Engels and the Industrialization of Print
Chapter Four: The bios politicos of Selfies
Afterword
Bibliography
About the Author

The Media Environment of Political Thought proposes that revolutionary political thought and new media technologies exist in a dialectical relationship. By demonstrating how the material production of the text itself is imbricated in the expression of ideas, their circulation and reception, Shamis provides a much-needed and original approach to reading political theory. Written with great clarity and precision, the book deftly moves from Rousseau and Marx to our current moment of networked digital dissemination.