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International audience ; Simon Dawes's introduction to the inaugural issue of Media Theory.

International audience ; Simon Dawes's introduction to the inaugural issue of Media Theory.

International audience ; Simon Dawes's introduction to the inaugural issue of Media Theory.

Media theory is a new branch of discrete applied mathematics originally developed in mid-nineties to deal with stochastic evolution of preference relations in political science and mathematical psychology. However, many different examples of media can be found, ranging from learning spaces to hypercube computers, suggesting that this concept is ubiquitous. The paper presents very basic concepts and results of media theory and is aimed at a wide body of researchers in discrete applied mathematics. ; Peer Reviewed

Media theory is a new branch of discrete applied mathematics originally developed in mid-nineties to deal with stochastic evolution of preference relations in political science and mathematical psychology. However, many different examples of media can be found, ranging from learning spaces to hypercube computers, suggesting that this concept is ubiquitous. The paper presents very basic concepts and results of media theory and is aimed at a wide body of researchers in discrete applied mathematics. ; Peer Reviewed

Recently some scientists studying what happens in neurons when animals move freely created a bizarre media assemblage. This combined the generation of virtual world events for worms (by tampering with their neurons via optogenetics) with these worms "free" movement through their actual surroundings. Contemporary media and world are indeed finding many strange continuities and overlaps. Yet this paper suggests that what looks strange in such assemblages has always been the case. Contemporary media only draw attention to this more because, first, they possess more technical power to work within the entire world as medium, and, second, they increasingly diagram media/world relations with an acceptance of world as medium and media as world.Long ago, Alfred North Whitehead wrote of this 'world as medium'—for him, a medium for the 'vector transmission' of feeling. For Whitehead, "worlds" are worlds of feeling (feeling as worlding). Signal, the basis of media and communication, is feeling in movement, which is to say the world in movement, which is to say the world communicating itself in feeling as it creates itself. Things or events—both of which we can consider as what Whitehead terms "actual occasions"—do something special within the world as medium. They maintain their intensity. This paper will outline a theory of affect, signal, intensity and world, drawing largely from Whitehead and Deleuze. It will also provide a quick series of propositions concerning affect and politics that arise from thinking the world as medium. It draws attention not only to Whitehead's usefulness for thinking media and world but to Whitehead's own media philosophy (and in a couple of footnotes yet to be developed, to Whitehead's importance to media and communications theory and practice in the 20th century).

This work examines how effective democratic participant media theory (DPMT) is in the Nigerian media context, in terms of the tenets upheld, tenets not upheld as well as tenets marked with ambiguities. Data from the analysis of the editorials of three national newspapers –The Nation, The Sun and Vanguard - show that only The Sun - has editorials published daily, which supports the theory's tenet of the citizen's need for content. Political issues emerge fifth among six other sub-themes in their coverage and the citizen's determination of the need for media content turns out to be the purview of the journalists who are centrally controlled.

What are the premises of the major questions in media theory? Arguing for better questions this contribution notes the persistence of eurocentricism, ­mediacentricism and technological determinism and the dominance of the ­experience of what Jared Diamond calls the WEIRD (Western Educated Industrialized Rich Democracies) nations in framing the terms of debate and study.Anthropology in works such as Larkin (2008) may help defamiliarise the ­presumptions of western media theory and more clearly address the question of 'Where is the global "Greenwich Mean Time" of Media Theory?' Arguing for the need to place the technological present in historical perspective (cf Edgerton, 2008) this contribution makes the case for the primacy of historical and spatial contexts over the immediate moment of technological invention – on which so much attention is customarily focussed. To focus on media technologies and 'inventions' without considerations of their context runs the risks of embracing such dangerous simplifications as the idea that their socio-cultural effects can be deduced from their presumed technological 'essences' – whereas any given technology may very well come to have quite different significance in varying cultural contexts.

Since its initial formulation in 1988, the Herman-Chomsky Propaganda Model (PM) has become one of the most widely tested models of media performance in the social sciences. This is largely due to the combined efforts of a loose group of international scholars as well as an increasing number of students who have produced studies in the US, UK, Canadian, Australian, Japanese, Chinese, German, and Dutch contexts, amongst others. Yet, the PM has also been marginalised in media and communication scholarship, largely due to the fact that the PM"s radical scholarly outlook challenges the liberal and conservative underpinnings of mainstream schools of thought in capitalist democracies. This paper brings together, for the first time, leading scholars to discuss important questions pertaining to the PM"s origins, public relevance, connections to other approaches within Communication Studies and Cultural Studies, applicability in the social media age, as well as impact and influence. The paper aligns with the 30th anniversary of the PM and the publication of the collected volume, The Propaganda Model Today, and highlights the PM"s continued relevance at a time of unprecedented corporate consolidation of the media, extreme levels of inequality and class conflict as well as emergence of new forms of authoritarianism.

International audience ; Since its initial formulation in 1988, the Herman-Chomsky Propaganda Model (PM) has become one of the most widely tested models of media performance in the social sciences. This is largely due to the combined efforts of a loose group of international scholars as well as an increasing number of students who have produced studies in the US, UK, Canadian, Australian, Japanese, Chinese, German, and Dutch contexts, amongst others. Yet, the PM has also been marginalised in media and communication scholarship, largely due to the fact that the PM"s radical scholarly outlook challenges the liberal and conservative underpinnings of mainstream schools of thought in capitalist democracies. This paper brings together, for the first time, leading scholars to discuss important questions pertaining to the PM"s origins, public relevance, connections to other approaches within Communication Studies and Cultural Studies, applicability in the social media age, as well as impact and influence. The paper aligns with the 30 th anniversary of the PM and the publication of the collected volume, The Propaganda Model Today, and highlights the PM"s continued relevance at a time of unprecedented corporate consolidation of the media, extreme levels of inequality and class conflict as well as emergence of new forms of authoritarianism.

What happens to the media after the regime changes from authoritarian to the democratic system? Would the media also change accordingly and automatically become free after the regime's change? Furthermore, what are the forces within and outside the media that influence these changes? This paper aims to review the exiting literatures in the post authoritarian Latin America and Southeast Asia to answer the questions. As a method, this study conducts a critical literature review. This study found that there is agreement among scholars that regime's change didn't automatically lead to more free reporting. However, debate is going on about what factors influence the degree of change or continuity with regard to media freedom in post-authoritarian settings. In this regard, scholars have been divided to a theoretical dichotomy. In one hand, there are groups of scholars who believe that political economy factors are the main factors that influence degrees of media freedom. In another hand, there are scholars who believe that cultural factors are more influential. Borrowing the theory of Pierre Bourdie, French sociologists who also concern about this issue, the paper argues that his theory on media' change can be used as a theoretical framework to examine the media's changes and overcome the existing theoretical dichotomies.

Debates exist around whether we live in a new Web 2.0 post-industrial era, or whether little has changed in capitalist society. This contribution queries the relationship between new and old, arguing Hegelian dialectics helps explain how change and continuity can operate at different levels (Bhaskar, 1993). New and old reappear as categories shaping a field in which Nordenstreng's (2007) distinction between critical and administrative research remains relevant. What is needed is a critical digital and social media studies that draws upon real-life alternatives (such as free software and the digital commons) to neoliberal principles. As Stuart Hall noted (Jhally and Hall, 2012), Cultural Studies' move away from reductionist thinking ended by entirely forgetting the economy and capitalism that had not gone away. Hence, analysis in the UK needs to be informed by the political ­situation specifically Cameronism and Mayism (see Fuchs, 2016), with its co-opting of ­populist English nationalism and scapegoating tactics.Underlying a plurality of crises are influential economic trends: lower wage income, precarious labour, financialisation and the digitalisation of work. These developments – new and old, local and global, in BRICs countries and the West – pose difficult questions for progressive politics and for our field.

This article puts forward a theory of the role of digital media in social change. It begins by criticizing three theories that currently dominate our understanding of digital media and of media generally: network theory, mediatization theory and actor-network theory. It also identifies a gap in current communication theory, namely, that digital media mostly do not fit the divide into mass and interpersonal communication. A further problem is that insufficient attention is given to the difference between political communication and popular culture or everyday life. The article develops an alternative, focusing on four countries that provide a range of relationships between media and society; the U.S., Sweden, India and China. In all four countries, despite their differences, digital media, in contrast to traditional broadcast and interpersonal media, have led to a more differentiated media landscape. Greater complexity in political communication nevertheless runs up against the continuing dominance of elite agenda-setting. In terms of popular culture, all four countries have experienced a proliferation of media offerings and greater tetheredness between people. Hence, new divides are emerging between more active and variegated as against more passive and restricted media uses. The article concludes with implications of digital media for understanding media generally: with new digital media, there is now a need to rethink media theory in terms of fundamental debates about how media transform or preserve the social order.

Now in its fourth edition, Media Effects again features essays from some of the finest scholars in the field and serves as a comprehensive reference volume for scholars, teachers, and students. This edition contains both new and updated content that reflects our media-saturated environments, including chapters on social media, video games, mobile communication, and virtual technologies. In recognition of the multitude of research trajectories within media effects, this edition also includes new chapters on narratives, positive media, the self and identity, media selection, and cross-cultural media effects. As scholarship in media effects continues to evolve and expand, Media Effects serves as a benchmark of theory and research for the current and future generations of scholars.The book is ideal for scholars and for undergraduate and graduate courses in media effects, media psychology, media theory, psychology, sociology, political science, and related disciplines.

Now in its fourth edition, Media Effects again features essays from some of the finest scholars in the field and serves as a comprehensive reference volume for scholars, teachers, and students. This edition contains both new and updated content that reflects our media-saturated environments, including chapters on social media, video games, mobile communication, and virtual technologies. In recognition of the multitude of research trajectories within media effects, this edition also includes new chapters on narratives, positive media, the self and identity, media selection, and cross-cultural media effects. As scholarship in media effects continues to evolve and expand, Media Effects serves as a benchmark of theory and research for the current and future generations of scholars.The book is ideal for scholars and for undergraduate and graduate courses in media effects, media psychology, media theory, psychology, sociology, political science, and related disciplines.