[rohrpost] new publication: MEDIA: A Transdisciplinary Inquiry, University of Chicago Press, 2021

[Ingeborg Reichle]

NEW PUBLICATION

MEDIA: A Transdisciplinary Inquiry

ed. by Janet Wasko and Jeremy Swartz

University of Chicago Press: Chicago 2021 (280 pages | 42 halftones)

MEDIA: A Transdisciplinary Inquiry explores evolving definitions of
media and interrogates how media technologies are transforming media
theory and practice. The collection addresses the emerging roles of
media across a wide range of disciplines, featuring contributions from
an array of internationally known scholars and practitioners.

The definition of media itself is in a constant state of flux,
expanding to include an ever-widening range of concepts, products,
services, and institutions. Here, the authors reconceptualize media,
drawing not only on media and communication studies, but also
philosophy, sociology, political science, biology, art, computer
science, and information studies, among other disciplines. The
collection challenges traditional notions of media, explores emerging
media, and reexamines concepts including technology, environment, and
ecology; multimedia, mediation, and labor; and participation, repair,
and curation.

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.

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.

The book’s primary readership will be academics, scholars and students
in media and communication studies, including a wide range of
undergraduate and graduate courses in media studies, communication
studies and new media. Suitable for classroom use in the areas of
philosophy of communication and media, media theory, media ecology,
cultural studies, media archaeology, feminist studies and political
economy of communications and media.

CONTENTS

Preface to a Trilogy

Introduction

Genealogy

1. ‘When Multimedia Meant Democracy’, Fred Turner, Stanford University
(USA)

2. ‘Four Reporting Cultures: Designing Humans In and Out of the Future
of Journalism’, John Markoff, New York Times (USA)

3. ‘Dark Materials: Markets, Machines, Media’, Graham Murdock,
Loughborough University (UK)


Meanings of Media

4. ‘A Community of Media: There Is a There There’, Sean Cubitt,
Goldsmiths, University of London (UK)

5. ‘Media as Cultural Techniques: From Inscribed Surfaces to
Digitalized Interfaces’, Sybille Kramer, Freie Universität Berlin
(Germany)

6. ‘Understanding “Medium” in the Context of the Media Ecology
Tradition’, Lance Strate, Fordham University (USA)


Organs and Organization

7. ‘Between Media Studies and Organizational Communication: Organizing
as the Creation of Organs’, François Cooren and Frédérik Matte,
Université de Montréal (Canada)

8. ‘Current Paradigms for Creative Industry Research’, Angela
McRobbie, Goldsmiths, University of London (UK)

9. ‘The Politics of Mediation: Colonization to Co-Generative
Democracy’, Stanley Deetz, University of Colorado Boulder (USA)


Engagement and Extensions

10. ‘Phantasmal Selves: Computational Approaches to Understanding
Virtual Identities’, D. Fox Harrell, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (USA)

11. ‘Calm Media and the Limit of Attention’, Amber Case, Lewis & Clark
College (USA)

12. ‘The Next Internet’, Vincent Mosco, Queen’s University (Canada)


Biomediation

13. ‘Biological Dimensions of Media Ecology and Its Relationship to
Biosemiotics’, Robert K. Logan, University of Toronto (Canada)

14. ‘Biomediations: From “Life in Media” to “Living Media”’, Joanna
Zylinska, Goldsmiths, University of London (UK)

15. ‘Lynn Hershman Leeson: The Infinity Engine’, Ingeborg Reichle,
Universität für angewandte Kunst Wien (Austria)


Repair and Metamedia

16. ‘No Issues Without Media: The Changing Politics of Public
Controversy in Digital Societies’, Noortje Marres, University of
Warwick (UK)

17. ‘The Poetics and Political Economy of Repair’, Steven J. Jackson
and Lara Houston, Cornell University (USA)

18. ‘Metamedia’, Jeremy Swartz, University of Oregon (USA)

Appendix


Janet Wasko is a professor in the School of Journalism and
Communication at the University of Oregon. She is the author or editor
of twenty books and is currently president of the International
Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR).

Jeremy Swartz is a postdoctoral fellow in the School of Journalism and
Communication at the University of Oregon.


Paper $40.00
ISBN: 9781789382655
Will Publish January 2021
For sale in North and South America, Australia, and New Zealand only

Cloth $106.50
ISBN: 9781789383263
Will Publish January 2021
For sale in North and South America, Australia, and New Zealand only

https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/M/bo74405265.html

https://www.intellectbooks.com/media-transdisciplinary