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Articles 1 - 14 of 14
Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Rising Tides? Data Capture, Platform Accumulation, And New Monopolies In The Digital Music Economy, Leslie M. Meier, Vincent R. Manzerolle
Rising Tides? Data Capture, Platform Accumulation, And New Monopolies In The Digital Music Economy, Leslie M. Meier, Vincent R. Manzerolle
Communication, Media & Film Publications
This article examines the roles of platform-based distribution and user data in the digital music economy. Drawing on trade press, newspaper coverage, and a consumer privacy complaint, we offer a critical analysis of tech-music partnerships forged between Samsung and Jay-Z (2013), Apple iTunes Store and U2 (2014), Tidal and Kanye West (2016), and Apple Music and Drake (2017). In these cases, information technology (IT) companies supported album releases, and music was used to generate user data and attention: logics of data and attention capture were interwoven. The IT and music industries have adapted their business strategies to what we conceptualize …
Mobilizing The Audience Commodity 2.0: Digital Labour And Always-On Media, Vincent R. Manzerolle
Mobilizing The Audience Commodity 2.0: Digital Labour And Always-On Media, Vincent R. Manzerolle
Communication, Media & Film Publications
This paper re-examines the work of Dallas Smythe in light of the popularization of Internetenabled mobile devices (IMD). In an era of ubiquitous connectivity Smythe’s prescient analysis of audience ‘work’ offers a historical continuum in which to understand the proliferation of IMDs in everyday life. Following Smythe’s line of analysis, this paper argues that the expansion of waged and unwaged digital labour facilitated by these devices contributes to the overall mobilization of communicative, cognitive and co-operative capacities--capacities central to the accumulation strategies of ‘informational capitalism.’ As such, the rapid uptake of these devices globally is an integral component in this …
’Dynamic’ Obama Lectures ‘Bumbling’ Castro On Race Relations In Cuba, Oblivious To Black Lives Matter Movement In The U.S., James P. Winter
’Dynamic’ Obama Lectures ‘Bumbling’ Castro On Race Relations In Cuba, Oblivious To Black Lives Matter Movement In The U.S., James P. Winter
Communication, Media & Film Publications
No abstract provided.
On The Transactional Ecosystems Of Digital Media, Vincent R. Manzerolle, Allison Wiseman
On The Transactional Ecosystems Of Digital Media, Vincent R. Manzerolle, Allison Wiseman
Communication, Media & Film Publications
This article contributes a framework for understanding the convergence of two ‘transactional ecosystems’ or, put differently, the convergence of two types of currency: money and attention. The former is represented in the push to make commercial transactions ubiquitous and seamless (e.g. as in mobile payment systems), while the latter is represented by theories of the ‘attention economy’ and subsumed in the ‘attention and engagement’ metrics that currently shape the production and distribution of content on digital and mobile platforms. The means of communication and commerce, of payment and attention, are increasingly wedded together in the same device or platform implying …
“All The World’S A Shopping Cart”: Theorizing The Political Economy Of Ubiquitous Media And Markets, Lee Mcguigan, Vincent Manzerolle
“All The World’S A Shopping Cart”: Theorizing The Political Economy Of Ubiquitous Media And Markets, Lee Mcguigan, Vincent Manzerolle
Communication, Media & Film Publications
Ubiquitous connectivity to networked information-communication technologies increasingly mediates social experiences of markets and retail environments. These conditions lead some marketing scholars to conclude that digital media are reaching their inevitable culmination: an omnipresent marketplace. They call this “ubiquitous commerce” (u-commerce). U-commerce annihilates constraints over markets; borders, cultural differences, and geography cease to impose friction on exchange. As part of a broader understanding of new media and marketing, u-commerce deserves attention from critical communication studies. In foregrounding concerns of space, time, and consciousness, u-commerce exemplifies a commercial theory of media and invites critique at the nexus of medium theory and political …
Toronto Star Coverage Of The Politics Of Breast Cancer, Jane Mcarthur, James Winter
Toronto Star Coverage Of The Politics Of Breast Cancer, Jane Mcarthur, James Winter
Communication, Media & Film Publications
Research on media coverage of breast cancer has illustrated a tendency to report most often on prevalence, detection and treatment with a general lack of environmental and prevention oriented stories. In spite of growing evidence of links of causation between environmental and occupational exposures to breast cancer, the media seem generally to omit these factors. A detailed Critical Discourse Analysis was conducted on 125 articles from the Toronto Star from the year 2012, with the Propaganda Model as the theoretical framework. Seven different themes were found in the coverage of breast cancer. The study exposed how the dominant ideology came …
Technologies Of Immediacy / Economies Of Attention, Vincent Manzerolle
Technologies Of Immediacy / Economies Of Attention, Vincent Manzerolle
Communication, Media & Film Publications
This chapter contextualizes and expands upon Smythe’s contributions to the critique of capitalist media within an environment increasinglydefined by the rapid global development and adoption of mobile de-vices and ubiquitous wireless connectivity (UC). Specifically it theorizes theevolutionary trajectory of mobile media and wireless connectivity within thecontext of Smythe’s analytic focus on the audience commodity as: a) the organizing principle of commercial media; and b) a central component in the development of “consumption relations” including those “that motivate the population to buy consumer goods” (Smythe 1994, 239–240) necessary toinformational capitalism.
The Rise, Fall And Future Of Blackberry(Tm) Capitalism, Vincent Manzerolle, Andrew Herman
The Rise, Fall And Future Of Blackberry(Tm) Capitalism, Vincent Manzerolle, Andrew Herman
Communication, Media & Film Publications
The original inspiration for this chapter was a story about Barack Obama and his BlackBerry. In the run-up to Obama's inauguration as the forty-fourth President of the United States (POTUS), there was considerable coverage in the global media concerning the fate of his beloved BlackBerry. One of the hallmarks of Obama's triumphant political persona at the time was his 'street cred' among the digerati as a savvy internet user. His reliance on the iconic BlackBerry mobile communications device in the conduct of his successful presidential campaign became legendary Clifford (2009). So it was with great tribulation that the world waited …
Neo-Liberal Attacks On Labour: A Municipal Workers' Strike In A Labour Town, James Winter, Travis Reitsma, Amanda Wilson
Neo-Liberal Attacks On Labour: A Municipal Workers' Strike In A Labour Town, James Winter, Travis Reitsma, Amanda Wilson
Communication, Media & Film Publications
Labour is the primary target of neo-liberalism. A principled strike in 2009 over post-retirement medical benefits for new hires by Canada’s largest public sector union in the labour town of Windsor, Ontario was studied in the local monopoly daily. Three quarters of the reported news on the 101-day strike was anti-union, while the editorials and opinion columns were virtually entirely negative. City administrators could do no wrong, as they stuck to their agenda of privatization and union derogation. Four out of every five articles inaccurately described the City unions as greedy, wasteful, self-destructive, violent or militant. Ironically, the Windsor Star …
The Communication Of Capital: Digital Media And The Logic Of Acceleration, Vincent Manzerolle, Atle Mikkola Kjøsen
The Communication Of Capital: Digital Media And The Logic Of Acceleration, Vincent Manzerolle, Atle Mikkola Kjøsen
Communication, Media & Film Publications
This paper argues that questions concerning the circulation of capital are central to the study of contemporary and future media under capitalism. Moreover, it argues that such questions have been central to Marx’s analysis of the reproduction of capital vis-à-vis the realization of value and the reduction of circulation time. Marx’s concepts of both the circuit and circulation of capital implies a theory of communication. Thus the purpose of our paper is to outline the logistical mechanisms that underlie a Marxist theory of media and communication and thereby foregrounding the role new media plays in reducing circulation time. We argue …
Mobilizing The Audience Commodity: Digital Labour In A Wireless World, Vincent Manzerolle
Mobilizing The Audience Commodity: Digital Labour In A Wireless World, Vincent Manzerolle
Communication, Media & Film Publications
This paper re-examines the work of Dallas Smythe in light of the popularization of Internet-enabled mobile devices (IMD). In an era of ubiquitous connectivity Smythe’s prescient analysis of audience ‘work’ offers a historical continuum in which to understand the proliferation of IMDs in everyday life. Following Smythe’s line of analysis, this paper argues that the expansion of waged and unwaged digital labour facilitated by these devices contributes to the overall mobilization of communicative, cognitive and co-operative capacities – capacities central to the accumulation strategies of ‘informational capitalism’. As such, the rapid uptake of these devices globally is an integral component …
Consumer Databases, Neoliberalism, And The Commercial Mediation Of Identity: A Medium Theory Analysis, Vincent Manzerolle, Sandra Smeltzer
Consumer Databases, Neoliberalism, And The Commercial Mediation Of Identity: A Medium Theory Analysis, Vincent Manzerolle, Sandra Smeltzer
Communication, Media & Film Publications
This paper argues that the systemic nature of contemporary consumer surveillance undermines the most fundamental principle of free market economics: consumer sovereignty. Specifically, this paper argues that the rise of an ‘information’ or ‘knowledge’ society in conjunction with neoliberal capitalism has entrenched routine forms of surveillance within commercial strategies by employing networked databases as a primary medium for the articulation of consumer sovereignty (choice/demand). The communicative relationship between consumers and producers within the market involves effectively ‘listening’ (and then responding) to consumer needs and wants in a timely manner. Surveillance is therefore not only necessary for the operation of globalized …
The Virtual Debt Factory: Towards An Analysis Of Debt And Abstraction In The American Credit Crisis, Vincent Manzerolle
The Virtual Debt Factory: Towards An Analysis Of Debt And Abstraction In The American Credit Crisis, Vincent Manzerolle
Communication, Media & Film Publications
Emanating from the United States, the ongoing global credit crisis has provided important insights into a shady new area of capitalist exploitation: the consumer debt factory. In an effort to speed up and quantifiably increase the circula-tion of consumer credit to match the consumption needs of post-Fordist accumulation, this industry—comprising financial institutions, consumer database companies, and credit rating agencies—has created a highly detailed body of information to stand-in for the corporeal self. This paper therefore examines this industry’s conceptualization of the self as a disembodied mechanism for mass-producing debt, creating a highly volatile informational commodity divorced from all material con-straints. …
The Censorship Of Consensus: Fidel Castro's Retirement As Seen In The Canadian Media, James Winter
The Censorship Of Consensus: Fidel Castro's Retirement As Seen In The Canadian Media, James Winter
Communication, Media & Film Publications
In this paper I analyse the Canadian media's portrayal of the retirement of Fidel Castro, announced in February, 2008. The coverage reveals, perhaps above all else, the way in which a neo-liberal belief in capitalism, euphemistically called