Media Theory

Abstract

Most countries experienced an extended period of lockdown during 2021 due to the rapid increase in the number of Covid-19 cases and the comparatively slow process of developing and distributing effective vaccines. It is therefore no surprise that the pandemic was often mentioned in the introductions to books on media theory, although these projects were clearly conceived and written long before the pandemic began, and many of them were directly responding to the social crisis that preceded our current one-namely, the rapid rise in participation in social media and the accompanying rise in online extremism, which had devastating political consequences in the US and around the world. While these books were released after the 6 January attack on the US Capitol and the end of Donald Trump's term as president, many of them were attempting to examine how media technologies had contributed to the rise of authoritarianism and the decline of democratic values during his administration, and they often addressed similar concerns, such as the oppressive structures of digital media platforms, the potential threat that they pose to democracy, and how they might be used for political activism. The following review is divided into three sections that focus on each of these concerns: 1. Digital Media and Neoliberal Capitalism discusses how digital media introduced new forms of labour that were inherently linked to neoliberal capitalism; 2. Digital Media and Disinformation discusses the potential causes of and solutions to the problem of online disinformation; and 3. Digital Media and Political Change discusses the potential benefits and limitations of using digital media to promote positive political change, followed by 4. Conclusion. These books thus provide an insightful analysis of our current social, political, and economic situation, and they offer a wide range of suggestions on how our media technologies could be reconfigured in order to facilitate a more promising future.