Contributions from media studies

In 2004, we found that some classical theories and theorists from the field of media studies were applied by scholars seeking to understand the interplay of culture and technology, alongside cultural and communication theories, with the goal of understanding digital spaces. Marshall McLuhan’s (1962) ideas, in particular, were invoked when considering the notion of a digital “global village”.

In more recent work, media studies have provided rich conceptual and theoretical frameworks for understanding the cultural complexity that arises from today’s mediascapes. These approaches offer tools for interpreting media phenomena and for understanding the dynamics of media systems and their societal impact (Couldry & Hepp, 2019; Valtysson, 2020). By foregrounding how culture flows through, shapes, and is shaped by digital media, we can better grasp how different cultural groups interact with and interpret media content (Averbeck-Lietz, 2011; Koponen, 2020). Indeed, media theory illuminates how media technologies facilitate communication across dispersed communities (such as diasporas) in ways that resonate with Bhabha’s notion of the “Third Space” (2004)–capturing the hybrid cultural forms and transcultural exchanges enabled by digital platforms (Koponen, 2020).

Concurrently, recent media studies scholarship underscores pressing challenges in our digitized cultural landscape. For instance, media studies centres issues such as the digital divide, stressing how grappling with and addressing uneven and unjust access to media technologies and communicative entitlements can ensure better diverse cultural representation in the digital age (Couldry & Hepp, 2019). Media studies also provide conceptual tools to critique how media platforms such as YouTube influence cultural representation through their algorithmic logic and global ownership structures–a critique essential for understanding the consequences of media technologies on cultural diversity and representation (Valtysson, 2020). More broadly, media studies equips researchers with a critical lens to examine the power structures and ideological influences embedded within media infrastructures, content and practices–which are essential for uncovering biases and understanding the socio-political implications of media representations (Godler & Reich, 2017; Seto & Martin, 2019).

Overall, media studies efforts bring to the centre an effort to contextualize media uses, content and infrastructures within cultural settings, considering how technologies and content are produced, distributed, and consumed across various contexts, thereby revealing the global and local dimensions of media influence (Willems, 2014). In this way, media theory also challenges the traditional ‘container theory’ of media cultures as being bound by national territories, focussing instead on the complex dynamics and flows of media across and beyond borders (Couldry & Hepp, 2019; Godler & Reich, 2017). These flows can be easily illustrated with work that foregrounds how technologies contribute to the spread of popular nationalism and consumer nationalism, particularly in countries like China, influencing cultural and national identities (Couldry & Hepp, 2019; Mihelj & Jiménez‐Martínez, 2021),

Consequently, this body of work both enriches and problematizes our understanding of knowledge production. Indeed, authors such as Godler and Reich (2017) outline concepts like ‘epistemic cultures‘ (the patterned ways communities produce and legitimate knowledge) to examine how media technologies shape the processes of knowledge creation and validation, highlighting tensions in our understanding of truth across our mediatized cultural landscape. In this way, media studies offers tools for interpreting media phenomena and for analyzing how media systems operate and shape society. This perspective underscores the need to consider both local and global media cultures when explaining how media technologies shape everyday practices and perceptions (Driessens, 2014). Among these perspectives, Jenkins’ (2014) work stands out as essential for understanding the role of media technologies in fostering new forms of cultural participation that reshape our epistemic landscape. Indeed, participatory culture influences cultural identity and self-expression by affording individuals to explore their transcultural media experiences, linking personal and collective cultural identities through media practices.