Media and Communications

• Developments in digital technologies over the last 30 years have expanded massively human beings' capacity to communicate and connect. Media infrastructures have acquired huge complexity as a result of rapid technological change and the uneven spread of access. This is a good time to think critically about 'connection' and its potential contribution to social progress. We first explore key developments in media infrastructures and communication flows across the world, bringing out salient differences in the local evolution of, and inequalities in media access. Second, we examine how media – as infrastructures of connection – contribute to public knowledge and enable new types of encounter between people on various scales, while also enabling counter-movements for social progress. Third, we examine the changing governance of media infrastructures, the issues of social justice that such infrastructures raise and the counter-movements to which they give rise. Fourth, we consider media as a specific site of struggle for social progress, arguing that measures of social progress themselves need to be expanded to take account of the human needs (such as voice) that media serve. Overall the chapter reflects on how media and communications flows and infrastructures both maintain and challenge asymmetries of power, with complex implications for social progress.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Media and Communications (hsv//eng)

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