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This new book examines whether television can be used as a tool not just for capitalism, but for democracy. Throughout television's history, activists have attempted to access it for that very reason. New technologies-cable, satellite, and the internet-provided brief openings for amateur and activist engagement with television. This book elaborates on this history by using ethnographic data to build a new iteration of liberalism, technoliberalism, which sees Silicon Valley technology and the free market of Hollywood end the need for a politics of participation.
List of contents
Introduction: Liberalism and Video Power.- Chapter 1: Histories of Video Power.- Chapter 2: Liberalism and Broadcast Politics.- Chapter 3: Corporate Liberalism and Video Producers.- Chapter 4: Technoliberalism and the Origins of the Internet.- Chapter 5: Technoliberalism and the Convergence Myth.- Chapter 6: Silophication of Media Industries.- Chapter 7: Neoliberalism and Terminal Video.- Chapter 8: Towards the Beginning of a New Participatory Culture.- Postscript.
About the author
Adam Fish is Lecturer in the Sociology Department at Lancaster University, UK. As a cultural anthropologist, he examines digital industries that exercise their powers of persuasion and digital activists who challenge those powers. Much of his research focuses on the industry and activism surrounding digital video, of which he is both a critic and practitioner.
Summary
This new book examines whether television can be used as a tool not just for capitalism, but for democracy. Throughout television’s history, activists have attempted to access it for that very reason. New technologies—cable, satellite, and the internet—provided brief openings for amateur and activist engagement with television. This book elaborates on this history by using ethnographic data to build a new iteration of liberalism, technoliberalism, which sees Silicon Valley technology and the free market of Hollywood end the need for a politics of participation.
