Mediarchy

by Yves Citton

We think that we live in democracies: in fact, we live in mediarchies. Our political regimes are based less on nations or citizens than on audiences shaped by the media. We assume that our social and political destinies are shaped by the will of the people without realizing that 'the people' are always produced, both as individuals and as aggregates, by the media: we are all embedded in mediated publics, 'intra-structured' by the apparatuses of communication that govern our interactions.

In this major book, Yves Citton maps out the new regime of experience, media and power that he designates by the term 'mediarchy'. To understand mediarchy, we need to look both at the effects that the media have on us and also at the new forms of being and experience that they induce in us. We can never entirely escape from the effects of the mediarchies that operate through us but by becoming more aware of their conditioning, we can develop the new forms of political analysis and practice which are essential if we are to rise to the unprecedented challenges of our time.

This comprehensive and far-reaching book will be essential reading for students and scholars in media and communications, politics and sociology, and it will be of great interest to anyone concerned about the multiple and complex ways that the media - from newspapers and TV to social media and the internet - shape our social, political and personal lives today.

Genres: Nonfiction, France, Politics

323 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 11, 2019

About the author

Yves Citton is professor of Literature and Media at the Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint Denis and executive director of the Ecole Universitaire de Recheche ArTeC. He is the author of a dozen books, and has taught for 13 years at the Université Grenoble Alpes and for 12 years in the department of French and Italian of the University of Pittsburgh, PA. He received his PhD from the University of Geneva, Switzerland.

Reviews

[Emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Half a semester, 17 pages of hand-written notes, and many shouts of "stop making up words!" later - I have finally finished this book!

Don't get me wrong, I would say it was worth it.

Yves Citton plunges in the deep end and rips into the ways in which media structures our society, our behaviours, our politics, our worlds, our ontologies, our epistemologies. It's a real roller-coaster ride this one. It ties into questions currently circulating globally which concern themselves with: the role of media in politics (e.g. certain nations influencing in the elections of other nations), to what extent we become apathetic to our environment because of technology, and are algorithms really taking over the world? (the answer: kinda??)

To be honest, a lot of this went over my ahead, not un-entirely because I had to rush through some parts of this in order to read it in time to hand in a book review for class. Citton also cites every post-ideology you can think of: post-modernism, post-structuralism, post-media, post-advert... Nonetheless, even though I suspect I missed heaps, I also gleaned a lot of fascinating information about the dynamics between the media, the analogical world, human beings, politics, the psyche...

Would recommend this book to anyone interested in the META role/existence of media albeit I would also recommend noting down a glossary as you go along because Citton has a habit of inventing new words every couple of pages and it's hard to keep track.

[Faites_for_haine · Rating 1 out of 5]

Verbeux a en mourir, tirez moi une balle