1(1) 2015: Digital Materialism

Browsing 1(1) 2015: Digital Materialism by Subject "ddc:306"

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Article
    Information Politics. Tim Jordan in Conversation with Karin Wenz
    Jordan, Tim; Wenz, Karin (2015) , S. 227-237
    The following interview took place in May 2015 in London during a meeting of Tim Jordan with Karin Wenz. In contrast to the first interview in this volume, the interview had been done in a face-to-face setting, which is reflected in its less formal style. Tim Jordan is Head of School of Media, Film and Music at the University of Sussex in Brighton, UK. Tim has published on social movements and internet culture and is well-known for his analyses of digital cultures and hacking cultures since the 1990s. This interview focuses on his recent publication Information Politics. Liberation and Exploitation in the Digital Society (2015). Tim’s research is situated in the field of social sciences and digital cultures. His search for communities of practices related to recent technological developments and power relations is a red thread throughout his publications. Case studies Tim investigated are rave culture, hacking communities, gaming but also recent technological developments such as mobile technology with a focus on tablets and the use of clouds, social media and search engines.
  • Article
    Technological Materiality and Assumptions About 'Active' Human Agency
    Bollmer, Grant (2015) , S. 95-110
    One of the most notable challenges to emerge from the materialist turn in media studies is the rejection of the ‘active audience’ paradigm of British cultural studies. And yet, in spite of the increasing attention to materiality, many of the problems associated with the split between German media studies traditions and those derived from cultural studies persist today. While no longer concerned with representation, privilege is nonetheless often granted to the material agency of ‘real people’ as that which shapes and determines the materiality of technology. This article is primarily a theoretical and methodological reflection on how materiality challenges – but sometimes relies on – long standing and often veiled traditions from cultural studies, especially as they move out of academic discussion and into the popular imaginary of social media and its ‘usergenerated content.’ I focus on some deliberate attempts at excluding materiality found in cultural studies’ history, arguing that an emphasis on the agency of ‘real people’ can only happen through the deliberate erasure of the materiality of technology. Drawing on Ien Ang’s DESPERATELY SEEKING THE AUDIENCE (1991), which argued that television ‘audiences’ must themselves be understood as produced in relation to the demands and interests of broadcasting institutions, I suggest that digital media ‘audiences’ are produced in relationship to the infrastructural power of servers, algorithms, and software. This demonstrates that any attempt to identify ‘human agency’ must also look at how this agency is co-produced with and by technological materiality.