Special Section Guest Editorial: Image/Video Quality and System Performance

Rapid developments in display technologies, digital printing, imaging sensors, image processing and image transmission are providing new possibilities for creating and conveying visual content. In an age in which images and video are ubiquitous and where mobile, satellite, and three-dimensional (3-D) imaging have become ordinary experiences, quantification of the performance of modern imaging systems requires appropriate approaches. At the end of the imaging chain, a human observer must decide whether images and video are of a satisfactory visual quality. Hence the measurement and modeling of perceived image quality is of crucial importance, not only in visual arts and commercial applications but also in scientific and entertainment environments. Advances in our understanding of the human visual system offer new possibilities for creating visually superior imaging systems and promise more accurate modeling of image quality. As a result, there is a profusion of new research on imaging performance and perceived quality.

Against divisiveness: Digital workers of the world unite! A rejoinder to César Bolaño and Eloy Vieira

This piece is a short rejoinder to César Bolaño’s paper The Political Economy of the Internet and related articles (e.g., Comor, Foley, Huws, Reveley, Rigi and Prey, Robinson) that center around the relevance of Marx’s labor theory of value for understanding social media. I argue that Dallas Smythe’s assessment of advertising was made to distinguish his approach from the one by Baran and Sweezy. Smythe developed the idea of capital’s exploitation of the audience at a time when both feminist and anti-imperialist Marxists challenged the orthodox idea that only white factory workers are exploited. The crucial question is how to conceptualize productive labor. This is a theoretical, normative, and political question. A mathematical example shows the importance of the “crowdsourcing” of value-production on Facebook. I also point out parallels of the contemporary debate to the Soviet question of who is a productive or unproductive worker in the Material Product System.

Georg Lukács as a Communications Scholar: Cultural and Digital Labour in the Context of Lukács’ Ontology of Social Being

The task of this work is to apply thoughts from Georg Lukács’ final book, the Ontology of Social Being, for the theoretical analysis of cultural and digital labour. It discusses Lukács’ concepts of work and communication and relates them to the analysis of cultural and digital work. It also analyses his conception of the relation of labour and ideology and points out how we can make use of it for critically understanding social media ideologies. Lukács opposes the dualist separation of the realms of work and ideas. He introduces in this context the notion of teleological positing that allows us to better understand cultural and digital labour as well as associated ideologies, such as the engaging/connecting/sharing-ideology, today. The analysis shows that Lukács’ Ontology is in the age of Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter still a very relevant book, although it has thus far not received the attention that it deserves. This article also introduces the Ontology’s main ideas on work and culture, which is important because large parts of the book have not been translated from the German original into English. Lukács’ notion of teleological positing is crucial for understanding the common features of the economy and culture.

Alienation and Digital Labour – a Depth-Hermeneutic Inquiry into Online Commodification and the Unconscious

At the core of this paper is a psychosocial inquiry into the Marxist concept of alienation and its applications to the field of digital labour. Following a brief review of different theoretical works on alienation, it looks into its recent conceptualisations and applications to the study of online social networking sites. Finally, the authors offer suggestions on how to extend and render more complex these recent approaches through in-depth analyses of Facebook posts that exemplify how alienation is experienced, articulated, and expressed online. For this perspective, the article draws on Rahel Jaeggi’s (2005) reassessment of alienation, as well as the depth-hermeneutic method of “scenic understanding” developed by Alfred Lorenzer (e.g. 1970; 1986).

The relation between content providers and distributors: Lessons from the regulation of television distribution in the United Kingdom

Using the United Kingdom (UK) as a case study, this article analyses the growing commercial and regulatory significance of broadcaster-distributor relations within the contemporary television industry. The first part of the article argues that despite important changes in broadcast delivery technology, more recently shaped by the growth of the Internet, and the associated growth of options of receiving television content, the traditional delivery platforms (digital terrestrial, satellite and cable) remain by far the preferred choice for viewers in Britain. At the same time, public service broadcasters continue to be the biggest investors in domestic original non-sport content and account for over half of all television viewing. The strength of PSBs in content and their growing reliance on commercial proprietary subscription platforms (cable and satellite) and gradually on the Internet presents challenges in the nexus between broadcasters and distributors. The article focuses on the debate over retransmission fees between PSBs and Sky, and on the question of whether Sky should be required to offer some of its premium content to rival pay-TV platforms. These two examples highlight the impact regulatory intervention can have on the balance of power between broadcasters and distributors. The article concludes that such debates concerning the commercial relations between content providers and distributors will remain pivotal and become more heated given that similar issues are raised in the Internet environment.

Muslims in Public and Media Discourse in Western Europe: The Reproduction of Aporia and Exclusion

This chapter scrutinizes the dominant public discourse in Western Europe. Drawing on examples from the UK, Germany, and France but also from the Netherlands, Denmark and Spain it illustrates the gradual transformation of discourse from an “exotic Islam” to a “threatening Islam” that endangers European values and safety and suggests that the combination of this “securitization” of Islam and the monopoly of the “Muslim voice” by radical Muslim activists leads to a vicious circle of misrecognition and enhancing the aporia of Europe's Muslims.

The state and the development of an information society: Greek policy and experience

The paper looks into the dynamics of information society policy and its implementation in the Greek context. It argues that information society development is a contested process, influenced by pre-existing state, economy and society relations. Based on this, it looks into the different aspects of the idiosyncratic path which the evolution of the Greek information society has followed, particularly after 2000. Using Bob Jessop's strategic-relational approach (SRA) to the state as an analytical framework and drawing on a number of in-depth interviews with relevant political actors, it provides insights into policy implementation by examining: the public management of information technology projects, how such projects were received in bureaucratic structures and practices, as well as the relationship between the state and the information and communication technology (ICT) sector in public procurement processes. The emphasis is on the period 2000–2008, during which a major operational programme on the information society in Greece was put into effect. The paper also touches upon the post-2008 experience, suggesting that information society developments might include dynamics operating independently and even in contradiction to the state agenda.

Media Research and Psychoanalysis: A Suggestion

This short commentary outlines psychoanalysis as a theory and method and its potential value to media research. Following Dahlgren (2013), it is suggested that psychoanalysis may enrich the field because it may offer a complex theory of the human subject, as well as methodological means of doing justice to the richness, ambivalence and contradictions of human experience. The psychoanalytic technique of free association and how it has been adapted in social research (Hollway and Jefferson 2000) is suggested as a means to open up subjective modes of expression and thinking – in researchers and research participants alike – that lie beyond rationality and conscious agency.

Strategies of newsroom convergence: comparing UK and Chinese newspaper groups

This research examines media integration in China, choosing two Chinese newspaper groups as cases for comparative study. The study analyses the convergence strategies of these Chinese groups by reference to an Role Model of convergence developed from a literature review of studies of cases of media convergence in the UK – in particular the Guardian (GNM), Telegraph Media Group (TMG), the Daily Mail and the Times. UK cases serve to establish the characteristics, causes and consequences of different forms of convergence and formulate a model of convergence. The model will specify the levels of newsroom convergence and the sub-units of analysis which will be used to collect empirical data from Chinese News Organisations and compare their strategies, practices and results with the UK experience. The literature review shows that there is a need for more comparative studies of media convergence strategy in general, and particularly in relation to Chinese media. Therefore, the study will address a gap in the understanding of media convergence in China. For this reason, my innovations have three folds: Firstly, to develop a new and comprehensive model of media convergence and a detailed understanding of the reasons why media companies pursue differing strategies in managing convergence across a wide range of units of analysis. Secondly, this study tries to compare the multimedia strategies of media groups under radically different political systems. Since, there is no standard research method or systematic theoretical framework for the study of Newsroom Convergence, this study develops an integrated perspective. The research will use the triangulation analysis of textual, field observation and interviews to explain systematically what was the newsroom structure like in the past and how did the copy flow change and why. Finally, this case study of media groups can provide an industrial model or framework for the other media groups.

Landscapes of the invisible: sounds, cosmologies and poetics of space

In this PhD by Publication I revisit and contextualize art works and essays I have collaboratively created under the name Flow Motion between 2004-13, in order to generate new insights on the contributions they have made to diverse and emerging fields of contemporary arts practice/research, including digital, virtual, sonic and interdisciplinary art. The works discussed comprise the digital multimedia installation and sound art performance Astro Black Morphologies/Astro Dub Morphologies (2004-5), the sound installation and performance Invisible (2006-7), the web art archive and performance presentation project promised lands (2008-10), and two related texts, Astro Black Morphologies: Music and Science Lovers (2004) and Music and Migration (2013). I show how these works map new thematic constellations around questions of space and diaspora, music and cosmology, invisibility and spectrality, the body and perception. I also show how the works generate new connections between and across contemporary avant-garde, experimental and popular music, and visual art and cinema traditions. I describe the methodological design, approaches and processes through which the works were produced, with an emphasis on transversality, deconstruction and contemporary black music forms as key tools in my collaborative artistic and textual practice. I discuss how, through the development of methods of data translation and transformation, and distinctive visual approaches for the re-elaboration of archival material, the works produced multiple readings of scientific narratives, digital X-ray data derived from astronomical research on black holes and dark energy, and musical, photographic and textual material related to historical and contemporary accounts of migration. I also elaborate on the relation between difference and repetition, the concepts of multiplicity and translation, and the processes of collective creation which characterize my/Flow Motion’s work. The art works and essays I engage with in this commentary produce an idea of contemporary art as the result of a fluid, open and mutating assemblage of diverse and hybrid methods and mediums, and as an embodiment of a cross-cultural, transversal and transdisciplinary knowledge shaped by research, process, creative dialogues, collaborative practice and collective signature.

Gold, power, protest: Digital and social media and protests against large-scale mining projects in Colombia

Colombia’s Internet connectivity has increased immensely. Colombia has also ‘opened for business’, leading to an influx of extractive projects to which social movements object heavily. Studies on the role of digital media in political mobilisation in developing countries are still scarce. Using surveys, interviews, and reviews of literature, policy papers, website and social media content, this study examines the role of digital and social media in social movement organisations and asks how increased digital connectivity can help spread knowledge and mobilise mining protests. Results show that the use of new media in Colombia is hindered by socioeconomic constraints, fear of oppression, the constraints of keyboard activism and strong hierarchical power structures within social movements. Hence, effects on political mobilisation are still limited. Social media do not spontaneously produce non-hierarchical knowledge structures. Attention to both internal and external knowledge sharing is therefore conditional to optimising digital and social media use.