MEDIA

A Transdisciplinary Inquiry

Edited by Jeremy Swartz, Janet Wasko

Publication date:

30 April 2021

Publisher

Intellect Books

Dimensions:

170x244mm
10x7"

ISBN-13: 9781789383263

The first in the Media-Life-Universe trilogy, this volume explores a transdisciplinary notion of media and technology, exploring media as technology, with special attention to its material, historical and ecological ramifications. The authors reconceptualize media from environmental, ecological and systems approaches, drawing not only on media and communication studies, but also philosophy, sociology, political science, biology, art, computer science, information studies and other disciplines.

Featuring a group of internationally known scholars, this collection explores evolving definitions of media and how media technologies are transforming theory and practice. As the current media includes a wider and wider range of concepts, products, services and institutions, the definition of media continues to be in a state of flux. What are media today? How is media studies evolving? How have technologies transformed communication and media theory, and informed praxis? What are some of the futures of media?

The collection challenges traditional notions of media, as well as concepts such as freedom of expression, audience empowerment and participatory media, and explores emergent media including transmedia, virtual reality, online games, metatechnology, remediation and makerspaces.

This is the first volume in the MEDIA • LIFE • UNIVERSE Trilogy. LIFE: A Transdisciplinary Inquiry 9781789382655 follows and builds upon this 2021 collection.

Preface to a Trilogy

Introduction

Genealogy

‘When Multimedia Meant Democracy’, Fred Turner
‘Four Reporting Cultures: Designing Humans In and Out of the Future of Journalism’, John Markoff
‘Dark Materials: Media, Machines, Markets’, Graham Murdock

Meanings of Media

‘A Community of Media: There Is a There There’, Sean Cubitt
‘Media as Cultural Techniques: From Inscribed Surfaces to Digitalized Interfaces’, Sybille Kramer
‘Understanding “Medium” in the Context of the Media Ecology Tradition’, Lance Strate

Organs and Organization

‘Between Media Studies and Organizational Communication: Organizing as the Creation of Organs’, François Cooren and Frédérik Matte
‘Paradigms for Creative Industry Research’, Angela McRobbie
‘The Politics of Mediation: Colonization to Co-Generative Democracy’, Stanley Deetz

Engagement and Extensions

‘Phantasmal Selves: Computational Approaches to Understanding Virtual Identities’, D. Fox Harrell
‘Calm Technology/Media and the Limit of Attention’, Amber Case
‘The Next Internet’, Vincent Mosco

Biomediations

‘Biological Dimensions of Media Ecology and Its Relationship to Biosemiotics’, Robert K. Logan
‘Biomediations: From “Life in Media” to “Living Media”’, Joanna Zylinska
‘Lynn Hershman Leeson: The Infinity Engine’, Ingeborg Reichle

Repair and Metamedia

‘No Issues Without Media: The Changing Politics of Public Controversy in Digital Societies’, Noortje Marres
‘The Poetics and Political Economy of Repair’, Steven J. Jackson and Lara Houston
‘Metamedia’, Jeremy Swartz

Appendix: Exhibition • Experience • Music

Notes on Contributors

Index

'The creative imagination of this book is astonishing. The brilliance of transdisciplinarity in these intellectually innovative chapters represents a historic turning point in media theory and research. Instead of timid steps, we need to urgently reconceptualize mediation, systems, networks, platforms, criticism, and materiality. This collection is an educational earthquake.'