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Rethinking Media and Communication
A Critical Sociological Lens
Series: - Studies in Critical Social Sciences, Volume: 355
In this book, the authors address critical questions about the role of media and communication in capitalist societies. How do power structures shape communication processes? How are inequalities reinforced across different levels of societyâmicro, mezzo, and macro? Drawing on sociology, political economy, media studies and related fields, the book offers fresh insights into how communication supports capitalist domination, from media commodification to media concentration. It calls for a rethinking of how communication affects social relations and how social relations influence communication, exposing its deep connection to economic and political power. This book is essential for anyone seeking to understand the forces shaping todayâs media landscape.
PaÅ¡ko BiliÄ is Chair of the Centre for Sociology of Media and Digital Society at IRMO in Zagreb, Croatia, and coordinator of the European Sociological Association's Research Network 18: Sociology of Communications and Media Research.
Thomas Allmer is a research associate at the Department of Media Studies at Paderborn University in Germany and a co-editor of the journal tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique. Website: https://thomasallmer.net
Thomas Allmer is a research associate at the Department of Media Studies at Paderborn University in Germany and a co-editor of the journal tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique. Website: https://thomasallmer.net
Contents
List of Figures, Tables, and Diagrams
1 Introduction
âPaÅ¡ko BiliÄ and Thomas Allmer
Part 1 Setting the Scene
2 Contested Legacies â Marxian Influences on the Sociology of Media and Communication
âSaÅ¡o SlaÄek-Brlek and Boris Mance
Part 2 Abstraction and Fetish
3 Between Capital and the Lifeworld: Contradictions of Value-Regulated Social Interactions
âPaÅ¡ko BiliÄ
4 Theorising a Multidimensional Model for Analysing Data Fetishism: Reconciling Marxist and Freudian Approaches to the âSplitâ
âAndrea Miconi and Nico Carpentier
5 Actio in distans: a Critical Node of Technological and Social Mediation
âMarco Briziarelli
Part 3 Dominance and Counter-Dominance
6 From the Iron Cage to the Silicon Cage: New Forms of Domination within Hypermediated Societies
âDavide Lucantoni, Francesco Orazi and Federico Sofritti
7 Legal Determination of Forms in Software and Communication: between Public and Capital
âToni Prug and Mislav Žitko
Part 4 Public Opinion, Public Sphere and Communicative Activity
8 Fast and Shallow: towards a Critical Theory of Opinion
âEric-John Russell
9 Activity Theory in the Digital Age: Can Communication and Data Be Expropriated, Exploited, or Alienated?
âSebastian Sevignani
Part 5 Non-Western Directions in the Critical Sociology of Media and Communication
10 Ibn Khaldûn and the Political Economy of Communication in the Age of Digital Capitalism
âChristian Fuchs
11 Ibn Khaldûn Revisited: Responding to Christian Fuchs
âGraham Murdock
12 Ibn Khaldûn and the Political Economy of Communication: a Reply to Graham Murdock
âChristian Fuchs
13 Re-reading Ibn Khaldûn in Critical Times
âGraham Murdock
14 Critical Sociological and Media Studies: How Latin America Learned to Contest Power from the Periphery
âJairo Lugo-Ocando and Monica Marchesi
Part 6 Re-focusing the Sociology of Media and Communication Debate
15 Dialectics of the Symbolic: Michel Freitag and the Critique of Communication
âClaude Leduc and Maxime Ouellet
16 Re-examining News Sources in the Sociology of the Media: a Political Economy of Communication Approach
âJernej A. Prodnik and Igor VobiÄ
17 Narrating the Field of Communication: Charting an Unstable Territory
âSteven Maras
Index
List of Figures, Tables, and Diagrams
1 Introduction
âPaÅ¡ko BiliÄ and Thomas Allmer
Part 1 Setting the Scene
2 Contested Legacies â Marxian Influences on the Sociology of Media and Communication
âSaÅ¡o SlaÄek-Brlek and Boris Mance
Part 2 Abstraction and Fetish
3 Between Capital and the Lifeworld: Contradictions of Value-Regulated Social Interactions
âPaÅ¡ko BiliÄ
4 Theorising a Multidimensional Model for Analysing Data Fetishism: Reconciling Marxist and Freudian Approaches to the âSplitâ
âAndrea Miconi and Nico Carpentier
5 Actio in distans: a Critical Node of Technological and Social Mediation
âMarco Briziarelli
Part 3 Dominance and Counter-Dominance
6 From the Iron Cage to the Silicon Cage: New Forms of Domination within Hypermediated Societies
âDavide Lucantoni, Francesco Orazi and Federico Sofritti
7 Legal Determination of Forms in Software and Communication: between Public and Capital
âToni Prug and Mislav Žitko
Part 4 Public Opinion, Public Sphere and Communicative Activity
8 Fast and Shallow: towards a Critical Theory of Opinion
âEric-John Russell
9 Activity Theory in the Digital Age: Can Communication and Data Be Expropriated, Exploited, or Alienated?
âSebastian Sevignani
Part 5 Non-Western Directions in the Critical Sociology of Media and Communication
10 Ibn Khaldûn and the Political Economy of Communication in the Age of Digital Capitalism
âChristian Fuchs
11 Ibn Khaldûn Revisited: Responding to Christian Fuchs
âGraham Murdock
12 Ibn Khaldûn and the Political Economy of Communication: a Reply to Graham Murdock
âChristian Fuchs
13 Re-reading Ibn Khaldûn in Critical Times
âGraham Murdock
14 Critical Sociological and Media Studies: How Latin America Learned to Contest Power from the Periphery
âJairo Lugo-Ocando and Monica Marchesi
Part 6 Re-focusing the Sociology of Media and Communication Debate
15 Dialectics of the Symbolic: Michel Freitag and the Critique of Communication
âClaude Leduc and Maxime Ouellet
16 Re-examining News Sources in the Sociology of the Media: a Political Economy of Communication Approach
âJernej A. Prodnik and Igor VobiÄ
17 Narrating the Field of Communication: Charting an Unstable Territory
âSteven Maras
Index
This book is especially relevant for advanced MA and PhD students and media and communication scholars interested in critical sociological approaches to media and communication.