The Message is Murder (Paperback)

Jonathan Beller

ISBN 10: 0745337309 / ISBN 13: 9780745337302

Published by Pluto Press, London, 2017

About this Item

Paperback. Written as a wake-up call to the field of media studies, The Message is Murder analyses the violence bound up in the everyday functions of digital media. At its core is the concept of 'computational capital' - the idea that capitalism itself is a computer, turning qualities into quantities, and that the rise of digital culture and technologies under capitalism should be seen as an extension of capitalism's bloody logic. Engaging with Borges, Turing, Claude Shannon, Hitchcock and Marx, this book tracks computational capital to reveal the lineages of capitalised power as it has restructured representation, consciousness and survival in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It argues that the global intensification of inequality relies on the discursive, informatic and screen-mediated production of social difference. Ultimately The Message is Murder makes the case for recognising media communications across all platforms - books, films, videos, photographs and even language itself - as technologies of political economy, entangled with the social contexts of a capitalism that is inherently racial, gendered and genocidal. A compelling case for recognising media communications as technologies of political economy. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9780745337302

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Message is Murder (Paperback)
• Publisher: Pluto Press, London
• Publication Date: 2017
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0745337309
• ISBN 13: 9780745337302
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

More than fifty years ago, Marshall McLuhan proclaimed that “the medium is the message,” profoundly influencing future generations of media theorists. A long-overdue wakeup call for the field of media studies, The Message is Murder analyzes the formations of violence still imbued in the everyday functions of the media. Jonathan Beller introduces the concept of computational capital to argue that contemporary media are not neutral, but rather they are technologies of political economy that became entangled with gendered and racialized capitalism in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Engaging with Borges, Turing, Hitchcock, and Marx, Beller offers an ambitious and provocative critique of contemporary media studies. 
 

About the Author

Jonathan Beller is professor of humanities and media studies and director of the graduate program of media studies at Pratt Institute, in New York.