In Praise of Concept Production

Abstract

In this chapter, Lovink and Rossiter argue that the field of media studies has yet to develop a theory of itself. Audience studies investigated fandom and the production of meaning, textual analysis preoccupied itself with signification processes attached to content, and political economy turned its gaze on institutional power. Medium theory, while close to the authors' own interests, still falls short, they argue, because it never changed the dialectic between old and new media or gave the relation a productive twist. Medium theory established a continuum between old and new media without considering how the media form itself gives rise to the production of new concepts. Media studies desperately needs new concept production, the authors argue, based in both online and face‐to‐face collaborative efforts. To develop new concepts, media researchers should begin with some reflexive mediation, examining how they use their object of study in the research methodology itself. From there, Lovink and Rossiter advocate moving the agenda beyond the analysis of visual representation to mobile media, miniaturization, smart technologies, and the integration of media into urban environments.

The Covid-19 World: Learning or Downfall

“…They should support activities that serve the public interest, such as publication of (low circulation) non-fiction, development and maintenance of free digital learning platforms and social software (such as Wikiversity 4 ), and so on. Hybrid strategies in education and learning, whichpostbine the digital and the non-digital (see Lovink and Rossiter 2018 : 51–52), are these days unavoidable, and their development is a smart move (see Jandrić et al 2018 ). In the new normal, these and other strategies should open up institutional education and enable students to read the word and change the world.…”

The Seeds of The Commons: Peer-to-Peer Alternatives for Planetary Survival and Justice

“…We worked in relative obscurity until 2014, when we were invited to do a commons transition project for the Ecuadorian government and people started taking us more seriously. We see ourselves as a ‘hybrid organized network’ (see Lovink and Rossiter 2018 ), a knowledge commons, where we ‘peer produce knowledge about peer production’.…”

Female Performers on a Male Stage

“…This neoliberal climate of gendered austerity is not unique to Britain; it is a reality across developed Western liberal democracies (Bray 2013 , 93–116). The process of gentrification that Geert Lovink and Ned Rossiter ( 2018 , 28–29) have called the ‘financialization of urban space’ has profoundly affected women’s ability to autonomously organise. Across the USA, the UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, it is largely no longer possible to ‘hangout on the fringes of festivals, make happenings in the underground cafes, build art spaces and studios, maintain theatre and performance spaces [and] run off zines on your own printing press or server’ (Lovink and Rossiter 2018 , 28–29).…”

“…Advocating that women become better hackers ignores that hacking evokes a male ethic of engagement based upon deception, sexual violence—that is, the penetration of targets—colonisation and surveillance (see Tanczer 2015 ). The battle for control of digital space can be seen as a type of modern warfare (Lovink and Rossiter 2018 ; Pötzsch 2015 ), and although academic debates often recast what I would see as a dangerous competition for manhood as boyish mischief (see Cohn 2013 , 138)—that is, trolling—this does not diminish the danger for women. An embrace of social media for political organising makes feminism complicit in what Anna Yeatman ( 2014 , 85) has called ‘a distinctively modern fantasy of control’ that promotes individualisation and fails to politically contend with the embodied experiences of everyday life.…”

“…I also discussed how scholars often forget that attention remains a finite resource in digital space (Lovink and Rossiter 2018 , 40; Tufekci 2013 ). It is still only a select number of users that are widely followed, shared and heard (Dean 2019 ).…”