Human as media: The Emancipation of Authorship is the potential given to the majority of citizens to promote (or publish) their ideas far beyond their immediate circle.
Social media
The medium is the breakage
With the limited access to authorship in the predigital eras, the linear and structured written narrative fostered “long-range” rationality. Non-literate media, starting with radio, TV and now the internet, favour “short-sighted” emotionality.
Media and responsibility for their effects: instrumental vs. environmental views
When used by a person, a fence is an instrument to protect and defend, a further extension of the skin, beyond clothes and huts. However, when used by a culture, a fence is an environmental force that transforms a nomadic… Read More ›
The hamsterization of journalism and cannibalism of news teasers
Being forced to compete for attention on social media, the media turn the readers of articles into the readers of recaps. News teasers on social media do more than just announce the news; they actually deliver the news. A chapter… Read More ›
How both old and new media polarise society for profit (or survival)
Why polarisation is a media effect and what we can do about it. Populism and polarisation are structurally embedded into this social-economic symbiosis. This media hardware can and must work only with this cultural software. Excerpts from the paper. Full… Read More ›
Review of Andrey Mir’s “Postjournalism and the Death of Newspapers”
The full title of Postjournalism and the Death of Newspapers. The Media after Trump: Manufacturing Anger and Polarization by Andrey Mir says it all: the delivery of news on Twitter and social media to an increasing majority of people has… Read More ›
Rage on social media: signaling intensities instead of feelings
Signaling intensities instead of feelings has become a built-in setting of social media that encourages socializing through rage. For platform owners, it is a good thing, the bread and butter of business. A chapter from “Postjournalism and the death of… Read More ›
The quantum theory of media
“The future of the book is the blurb,” as McLuhan once said. The news teaser, not even the article, is now the quantum of media content. A chapter from “Postjournalism and the death of newspapers” (2020). What is the unit… Read More ›
Scheduling the extinction of newspapers
Newspapers are in decline because of economic and technological factors, but their life span is measured by demographic factors. They will exist as an industrial product for no longer than the mid-2030s. A chapter from “Postjournalism and the death of… Read More ›
Ownership of the media: it is not what you think it must be
Traditional media owners may still control the news media, but they no longer control the news. A chapter from “Postjournalism and the death of newspapers” (2020). Under the idea of ownership as a filter of the Propaganda model, Herman and… Read More ›
