By Geert Lovink and Ned Rossiter
‘What does it reverse or flip into when pushed to the limits of its potential?’
Marshall McLuhan, Laws of Media, 1988
‘I have seen the future – and it’s not visual’.
Johan Sjerpstra
During the first decade of the 21st century the academic discipline of media studies failed to develop a compelling agenda. Media turned out to be an empty container that individualizes people rather than imagining collective agendas. The growth of ‘media’ could lead to its ultimate implosion. If ‘media’ have gone digital and become the network glue between devices, there is a danger of defining the boundaries of media studies purely for the sake of the discipline itself. Media studies then becomes self-referential, defined solely in terms of its self-defense against predatory competitors.
