Medialogies : reading reality in the age of inflationary media / David R. Castillo and William Egginton.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Castillo, David R., 1967- author.

Egginton, William, 1969- author.

Series:

Political theory and contemporary philosophy

Political Theory and Contemporary Philosophy

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Authenticity (Philosophy) in mass media.

Reality in mass media.

Mass media--Social aspects.

Mass media.

Mass media--Technological innovations.

Perception (Philosophy).

Physical Description:

viii, 274 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

New York ; London : Bloomsbury Academic, 2017.

Summary:

We are living in a time of inflationary media. While technological change has periodically altered and advanced the ways humans process and transmit knowledge, for the last 100 years the media with which we produce, transmit, and record ideas have multiplied in kind, speed, and power. Saturation in media is provoking a crisis in how we perceive and understand reality. Media become inflationary when the scope of their representation of the world outgrows the confines of their culture's prior grasp of reality. We call the resulting concept of reality that emerges the culture's medialogy. Medialogies offers a highly innovative approach to the contemporary construction of reality in cultural, political, and economic domains. Castillo and Egginton, both luminary scholars, combine a very accessible style with profound theoretical analysis, relying not only on works of philosophy and political theory but also on novels, Hollywood films, and mass media phenomena. The book invites us to reconsider the way reality is constructed, and how truth, sovereignty, agency, and authority are understood from the everyday, philosophical, and political points of view. A powerful analysis of actuality, with its roots in early modernity, this work is crucial to understanding reality in the information age. - Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Part 1 Inflationary Media

1 Editing Reality 9

2 A New Perspective 17

3 Theatricality 27

4 Commodity-Spectacles 35

5 How to Turn Things into Copies, and Copies into Things 43

Part 2 Fundamentals

6 Ineffable Me 59

7 Foundations 65

8 Freedom for Sale 73

9 Crime Shows 79

10 Political Theater 91

11 Monumental Screens 99

12 The New Fundamentals 111

Part 3 Exclusions

13 Terrifying Vistas of Reality 121

14 Dreamboat Vampires and Zombie Capitalists 127

15 The Global Undead 141

16 Dark Mirrors 149

17 Apocalypse Then and Now 155

Part 4 In Defense of Being

18 Minor Strategies 165

19 Stranger than Fiction 169

20 Truth and Lies in Life and Art 177

21 Staging the Event 187

22 The Architecture of Mourning 197

23 Occupy and Resist 201

24 Empire of Solitude 207.

Notes:

Includes bibliographic references (pages 241-253) and index.

ISBN:

9781628923605

1628923601

9781628923599

1628923598

OCLC:

957546454