Libros

In Life after New Media, Sarah Kember and Joanna Zylinska make a case for a significant shift in our understanding of new media. They argue that we should move beyond our fascination with objects–computers, smart phones, iPods, Kindles–to an examination of the interlocking technical, social, and biological processes of mediation. Doing so, they say, reveals that life itself can be understood as mediated–subject to the same processes of reproduction, transformation, flattening, and patenting undergone by other media forms. By Kember and Zylinska’s account, the dispersal of media and technology into our biological and social lives intensifies our entanglement with nonhuman entities. Mediation–all-encompassing and indivisible–becomes for them a key trope for understanding our being in the technological world. Drawing on the work of Bergson and Derrida while displaying a rigorous playfulness toward philosophy, Kember and Zylinska examine the multiple flows of mediation. Importantly, they also consider the ethical necessity of making a “cut” to any media processes in order to contain them. Considering topics that range from media-enacted cosmic events to the intelligent home, they propose a new way of “doing” media studies that is simultaneously critical and creative, and that performs an encounter between theory and practice.

How do precarious workers employed in call-centres, universities, the fashion industry and many other labour markets organise, struggle and communicate to become recognised, influential political subjects? "Media Practices and Protest Politics; How Precarious Workers Mobilise" reveals the process by which individuals at the margins of the labour market and excluded from the welfare state communicate and struggle outside the realm of institutional politics to gain recognition in the political sphere.

In this important and thought provoking work Alice Mattoni suggests an all-encompassing approach to understanding grassroots political communication in contemporary societies. Using original examples from precarious workers mobilizations in Italy she explores a range of activist media practices and compares different categories of media technologies, organizations and outlets from the printed press to web application and from mainstream to alternative media.

Explaining how activists perceive and understand the media environment in which they are embedded the book discusses how they must interact with a diverse range of media professionals and technologies and considers how mainstream, radical left-wing and alternative media represent protests. Media Practices and Protest Politics offers important insights for understanding mechanisms and patterns of visibility in struggles for recognition and redistribution in post-democratic societies and provides a valuable contribution to the field of political communication and social movement studies.
Contents: Preface; Introduction; Theoretical reflections on the study of grassroots political communication; The discursive context and contentious field of precarity in Italy; The construction of precarious subjects in mobilisations against precarity; Reflections in the mirror: media knowledge practices; Surfing media diversity: relational media practices; The construction of public identities: media representations of protest; Conclusions: the circuit of grassroots political communication; Methodological appendix; References; Index.
About the Author: Alice Mattoni is at the University of Pittsburgh, USA. Her research interests include social movements, new labour movements, political communication, and qualitative methods.
Reviews: 'A vital question today is how the range of political actors can be expanded. New political movements must take action within an unequal media environment. Alice Mattoni's tightly argued new book on Italy's movement against precarity is one of the most important on alternative media practice to be published in recent years. Its contribution to our understanding of contemporary struggles for visibility is fundamental.'
Nick Couldry, Goldsmiths, University of London UK

'A fresh look at the complex relationships among activists and media. In this insightful study of collective organizing among precarious workers in Italy, Mattoni provides a useful framework for understanding the media practices of social movement actors. Highly recommended for both scholars and activists.'
Kathleen Blee, University of Pittsburgh, USA