Mapping global forms, local materials and digital culture: towards a theory for comparative media studies

Abstract

This article intends to argue for a comparative approach to media studies to be based on the recognition of a global encounter of cultures with the imperatives of modernity and industrialisation. As different as the capitalist development in question may turn out in respective areas, it will be argued that the divergent histories of modernisation nonetheless generate a common experience that connects the Global South and the Global North, the West and the non-West, the First, Second and Third Worlds. The article therefore argues for a theoretical approach that pays attention to the power relations existing between different geopolitical areas, yet refuses to epistemologically privilege a Eurocentric prism. Instead, it explores in what ways comparative media studies might deal with cultural forms that are wholly industrialised and relatively capital intensive in their provision, such as digital mass media that rely on telecommunication networks, computer hardware and subscription fees. Aiming to bridge the gap between text and context, the article calls for an analysis of media texts as signifying practices which seek to move their audience and users in specific discursive directions. As a compromise between capitalist form and local material, media texts are believed to provide cognitive maps to people that shape their understanding of being-in-the- world while providing them with means to deal with ideologies of capitalist modernity. The article begins with a general discussion of the question of theory in a postcolonial context, then goes on to focus on the move from world literature to world media, to finally conclude with a perspective on the relationship between text and context, especially with regard to digital cultures and their global as well as local negotiation.

Keywords:

• digital culture
• Global North
• Global South
• media studies
• postcolonial contexts

Additional information

Ivo Ritzer is Professor at the University of Bayreuth.