Rethinking Media and Communication
A Critical Sociological Lens
Will be published approx. on 29. January 2027
Book
Paperback/Softback
390 pages
979-8-88890-926-3 (ISBN)
Description
A critical survey of the role of media and communication in capitalist societies.
Rethinking Media and Communication: A Critical Sociological Lens sets out to answer key questions about media and communication under capitalism. How do power structures shape communication processes? How are inequalities reinforced across different levels of society-micro, 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 today's media landscape.
Rethinking Media and Communication: A Critical Sociological Lens sets out to answer key questions about media and communication under capitalism. How do power structures shape communication processes? How are inequalities reinforced across different levels of society-micro, 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 today's media landscape.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Chicago
United States
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
Illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 228 mm
Width: 152 mm
ISBN-13
979-8-88890-926-3 (9798888909263)
Copyright in bibliographic data is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or its licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Pasko Bilic 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.
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.
Content
Contents
List of Figures, Tables, and Diagrams
1 Introduction
?Pasko Bilic and Thomas Allmer
Part 1 Setting the Scene
2 Contested Legacies - Marxian Influences on the Sociology of Media and Communication
?Saso Slacek-Brlek and Boris Mance
Part 2 Abstraction and Fetish
3 Between Capital and the Lifeworld: Contradictions of Value-Regulated Social Interactions
?Pasko Bilic
4 Theorising a Multidimensional Model for Analysing Data Fetishism: Reconciling Marxist and Freudian Approaches to the 'Split'
?Andrea Miconi and Nico Carpentier
5 Actio in distans: a Critical Node of Technological and Social Mediation
?Marco Briziarelli
Part 3 Dominance and Counter-Dominance
6 From the Iron Cage to the Silicon Cage: New Forms of Domination within Hypermediated Societies
?Davide Lucantoni, Francesco Orazi and Federico Sofritti
7 Legal Determination of Forms in Software and Communication: between Public and Capital
?Toni Prug and Mislav Zitko
Part 4 Public Opinion, Public Sphere and Communicative Activity
8 Fast and Shallow: towards a Critical Theory of Opinion
?Eric-John Russell
9 Activity Theory in the Digital Age: Can Communication and Data Be Expropriated, Exploited, or Alienated?
?Sebastian Sevignani
Part 5 Non-Western Directions in the Critical Sociology of Media and Communication
10 Ibn Khaldun and the Political Economy of Communication in the Age of Digital Capitalism
?Christian Fuchs
11 Ibn Khaldun Revisited: Responding to Christian Fuchs
?Graham Murdock
12 Ibn Khaldun and the Political Economy of Communication: a Reply to Graham Murdock
?Christian Fuchs
13 Re-reading Ibn Khaldun in Critical Times
?Graham Murdock
14 Critical Sociological and Media Studies: How Latin America Learned to Contest Power from the Periphery
?Jairo 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
?Claude Leduc and Maxime Ouellet
16 Re-examining News Sources in the Sociology of the Media: a Political Economy of Communication Approach
?Jernej A. Prodnik and Igor Vobic
17 Narrating the Field of Communication: Charting an Unstable Territory
?Steven Maras
Index
List of Figures, Tables, and Diagrams
1 Introduction
?Pasko Bilic and Thomas Allmer
Part 1 Setting the Scene
2 Contested Legacies - Marxian Influences on the Sociology of Media and Communication
?Saso Slacek-Brlek and Boris Mance
Part 2 Abstraction and Fetish
3 Between Capital and the Lifeworld: Contradictions of Value-Regulated Social Interactions
?Pasko Bilic
4 Theorising a Multidimensional Model for Analysing Data Fetishism: Reconciling Marxist and Freudian Approaches to the 'Split'
?Andrea Miconi and Nico Carpentier
5 Actio in distans: a Critical Node of Technological and Social Mediation
?Marco Briziarelli
Part 3 Dominance and Counter-Dominance
6 From the Iron Cage to the Silicon Cage: New Forms of Domination within Hypermediated Societies
?Davide Lucantoni, Francesco Orazi and Federico Sofritti
7 Legal Determination of Forms in Software and Communication: between Public and Capital
?Toni Prug and Mislav Zitko
Part 4 Public Opinion, Public Sphere and Communicative Activity
8 Fast and Shallow: towards a Critical Theory of Opinion
?Eric-John Russell
9 Activity Theory in the Digital Age: Can Communication and Data Be Expropriated, Exploited, or Alienated?
?Sebastian Sevignani
Part 5 Non-Western Directions in the Critical Sociology of Media and Communication
10 Ibn Khaldun and the Political Economy of Communication in the Age of Digital Capitalism
?Christian Fuchs
11 Ibn Khaldun Revisited: Responding to Christian Fuchs
?Graham Murdock
12 Ibn Khaldun and the Political Economy of Communication: a Reply to Graham Murdock
?Christian Fuchs
13 Re-reading Ibn Khaldun in Critical Times
?Graham Murdock
14 Critical Sociological and Media Studies: How Latin America Learned to Contest Power from the Periphery
?Jairo 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
?Claude Leduc and Maxime Ouellet
16 Re-examining News Sources in the Sociology of the Media: a Political Economy of Communication Approach
?Jernej A. Prodnik and Igor Vobic
17 Narrating the Field of Communication: Charting an Unstable Territory
?Steven Maras
Index