Series: Studies in Critical Social Sciences, Volume: 355 

Volume Editors: Paško Bilić and Thomas Allmer 

https://brill.com/display/title/64825 

In this book, the authors address critical questions about the role of media and communication in capitalist societies. How do power structures shape communication processes? How are inequalities reinforced across different levels of society—micro, mezzo, and macro? Drawing on sociology, political economy, media studies and related fields, the book offers fresh insights into how communication supports capitalist domination, from media commodification to media concentration. It calls for a rethinking of how communication affects social relations and how social relations influence communication, exposing its deep connection to economic and political power. This book is essential for anyone seeking to understand the forces shaping today’s media landscape. 

Hardback ISBN: 978-90-04-74853-8 

E-Book (PDF): 978-90-04-74854-5 

TOC 

Chapter 1 Introduction 

Authors: Paško Bilić and Thomas Allmer 

Part 1 Setting the Scene 

Chapter 2 Contested Legacies – Marxian Influences on the Sociology of Media and Communication 

Authors: Sašo Slaček-Brlek and Boris Mance 

Part 2 Abstraction and Fetish 

Chapter 3 Between Capital and the Lifeworld: Contradictions of Value-Regulated Social Interactions 

Author: Paško Bilić 

Chapter 4 Theorising a Multidimensional Model for Analysing Data Fetishism: Reconciling Marxist and Freudian Approaches to the ‘Split’ 

Authors: Andrea Miconi and Nico Carpentier 

Open Access: 

https://brill.com/downloadpdf/display/book/9789004748545/BP000012.pdf 

Chapter 5 Actio in distans: a Critical Node of Technological and Social Mediation 

Author: Marco Briziarelli 

Part 3 Dominance and Counter-Dominance 

Chapter 6 From the Iron Cage to the Silicon Cage: New Forms of Domination within Hypermediated Societies 

Authors: Davide Lucantoni, Francesco Orazi, and Federico Sofritti 

Chapter 7 Legal Determination of Forms in Software and Communication: between Public and Capital 

Authors: Toni Prug and Mislav Žitko 

Part 4 Public Opinion, Public Sphere and Communicative Activity 

Chapter 8 Fast and Shallow: towards a Critical Theory of Opinion 

Author: Eric-John Russell 

Chapter 9 Activity Theory in the Digital Age: Can Communication and Data Be Expropriated, Exploited, or Alienated? 

Author: Sebastian Sevignani 

Part 5 Non-Western Directions in the Critical Sociology of Media and Communication 

Chapter 10 Ibn Khaldûn and the Political Economy of Communication in the Age of Digital Capitalism 

Author: Christian Fuchs 

Chapter 11 Ibn Khaldûn Revisited: Responding to Christian Fuchs 

Author: Graham Murdock 

Chapter 12 Ibn Khaldûn and the Political Economy of Communication: a Reply to Graham Murdock 

Author: Christian Fuchs 

Chapter 13 Re-reading Ibn Khaldûn in Critical Times 

Author: Graham Murdock 

Chapter 14 Critical Sociological and Media Studies: How Latin America Learned to Contest Power from the Periphery 

Authors: Jairo Lugo-Ocando and Monica Marchesi 

Part 6 Re-focusing the Sociology of Media and Communication Debate 

Chapter 15 Dialectics of the Symbolic: Michel Freitag and the Critique of Communication 

Authors: Claude Leduc and Maxime Ouellet 

Chapter 16 Re-examining News Sources in the Sociology of the Media: a Political Economy of Communication Approach 

Authors: Jernej A. Prodnik and Igor Vobič 

Chapter 17 Narrating the Field of Communication: Charting an Unstable Territory 

Author: Steven Maras