294 research outputs found
Copyright and cultural work: an exploration
This article first discusses the contemporary debate on cultural âcreativityâ and the economy. Second, it considers the current state of UK copyright law and how it relates to cultural work. Third, based on empirical research on British dancers and musicians, an analysis of precarious cultural work is presented. A major focus is how those who follow their art by way of âportfolioâ work handle their rights in ways that diverge significantly from the current simplistic assumptions of law and cultural policy. Our conclusions underline the distance between present top-down conceptions of what drives production in the cultural field and the actual practice of dancers and musicians
Infrastructures of empire: towards a critical geopolitics of media and information studies
The Arab Uprisings of 2011 can be seen as a turning point for media and information studies scholars, many of whom newly discovered the region as a site for theories of digital media and social transformation. This work has argued that digital media technologies fuel or transform political change through new networked publics, new forms of connective action cultivating liberal democratic values. These works have, surprisingly, little to say about the United States and other Western colonial powersâ legacy of occupation, ongoing violence and strategic interests in the region. It is as if the Arab Spring was a vindication for the universal appeal of Western liberal democracy delivered through the gift of the Internet, social media as manifestation of the âtechnologies of freedomâ long promised by Cold War. We propose an alternate trajectory in terms of reorienting discussions of media and information infrastructures as embedded within the resurgence of idealized liberal democratic norms in the wake of the end of the Cold War. We look at the demise of the media and empire debates and âthe rise of the BRICSâ (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) as modes of intra-imperial competition that complicate earlier Eurocentric narratives media and empire. We then outline the individual contributions for the special collection of essays
Marxâs "Capital"in the Information Age
This article argues that a media and communication studies perspective on reading Marxâs Capital has thus far been missing, but is needed in the age of information capitalism and digital capitalism. Two of the most popular contemporary companions to Marxâs Capital, the ones by David Harvey and Michael Heinrich, present themselves as general guidebooks on how to read Marx, but are actually biased towards particular schools of Marxist thought. A contemporary reading of Marx needs to be mediated with contemporary capitalismâs structures and the political issues of the day. Media, communications and the Internet are important issues for such a reading today. It is time to see Marx not just as a critic of capitalism but also as a critic of capitalist communications
Digital technology and governance in transition: The case of the British Library
Comment on the organizational consequences of the new information and communications technologies (ICTs) is pervaded by a powerful imagery of disaggregation and a tendency for ?virtual? forms of production to be seen as synonymous with the ?end? of bureaucracy. This paper questions the underlying assumptions of the ?virtual organization?, highlighting the historically enduring, diversified character of the bureaucratic form. The paper then presents case study findings on the web-based access to information resources now being provided by the British Library (BL). The case study evidence produces two main findings. First, radically decentralised virtual forms of service delivery are heavily dependent on new forms of capacity-building and information aggregation. Second, digital technology is embedded in an inherently contested and contradictory context of institutional change. Current developments in the management and control of digital rights are consistent with the commodification of the public sphere. However, the evidence also suggests that scholarly access to information resources is being significantly influenced by the ?information society? objectives of the BL and other institutional players within the network of UK research libraries
Communications and Transport: The mobility of information, people and commodities
In a context where the study of communications tends to focus only on the mobility of information, to the neglect of that of people and commodities, this article explores the potential for a closer integration between the fields of communications and transport studies. Against the presumption that the emergence of virtuality means that material geographies are no longer of consequence, the role of mediated âtechnologies of distanceâ is considered here in the broader contexts of the construction (and regulation) of a variety of physical forms of mobility and the changing modes of articulation of the virtual and material worlds
Communication, development, and social change in Spain: A field between institutionalization and implosion
This paper renders an account of the rapid institutionalization of the academic field of Communication for Development and Social Change (CDCS) in Spain in recent years following a period of neglect and marginalization. The ongoing expansion of the field of CDSC in the Spanish context is understood as a process of implosion, i.e. a collapse inwards, which results from the inconsistencies and weaknesses of fast and late institutionalization. The methodological approach for this inquiry is a documental review of both academic literature and research and institutional reports produced in Spain between 1980 and 2010. Based on this review, the paper contrasts the trajectory of the field in Spain with the debates at the international level, establishing relevant continuities and differences.This article is part of the Research Project (Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness,
Spain) CSO2014-52005-R titled âEvaluation and Monitoring of Communication for
Development and Social Change in Spain: design of indicators to measure its social
impactâ (2015â2017)17 pĂĄgina
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