Making Media Futures offers a multi-perspectival exploration of how imaginaries and knowledge of the future are constructed in and through various media.
The volume addresses the discursive dimensions of imaginaries and future visions as well as the impact of technological, material, and cultural conditions on the propagation of future discourses through media. Providing both theoretically detailed and empirically rich investigations, the contributions offer a wide range of cases spanning the century from the end of World War II until today and looking at examples from the Southern Hemisphere as well as the Global North. Bringing together scholars in media studies, science and technology studies (STS), and the history and philosophy of technology, the chapters discuss future visions and imaginations of quantum computing, the uncertainty and impact of AI-based text-to-image generation, the ideology behind 5G telecommunication standards, imaginaries of the Internet of Things, transmedia strategies in global and local climate protests, how broadcast radio was implicated in the evangelical mission imaginary, and how early visions of automating scholarly information management shaped standards and ideals of academia. The volume thus complements existing approaches and analytical frameworks for the study of imaginaries and futures discourses with perspectives that are sensitive to the plurality of media-specific conditions and technologies.
The book will interest students and scholars working in media studies, STS, history and philosophy as well as at the intersection of engineering, humanities and social sciences, on matters such as sustainability, ethics, and responsible innovation.
Edited by:
Phillip H. Roth (RWTH Aachen University Germany),
Ana María Guzmán Olmos (RWTH Aachen University,
Germany),
Alin Olteanu (Shanghai International Studies University,
China),
Stefan Böschen (RWTH Aachen University,
Germany)
Imprint: Routledge
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 234mm,
Width: 156mm,
Weight: 520g
ISBN: 9781032741574
ISBN 10: 1032741570
Series: Routledge Studies in New Media and Cyberculture
Pages: 178
Publication Date: 22 April 2025
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Professional and scholarly
,
Primary
,
Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Foreword – Making Media Futures, or How Futures in the Mirror of Media May be Closer than They appear 1. Introducing Imagination Technologies: Making Media Futures & Future-Making Media I. Imagination and Future Media: Theoretical Reflections 2. The Quantum Computer as a Medium of the Future: Imaginaries of Quantum Computing in Alex Garland’s Mini-Series Devs 3. Gilbert Simondon’s Image Theory and Human-Technology Relations through Imagination and AI Image-Generation 4. No (Media) Future: Queer Theory, Reproductive Futurism, and 5G II. The Mediality of Imaginaries: Empirical Insights 5. Socio-technical imaginaries of the Internet of Things 6. Transmedia Strategies of Young Climate Activists: On the Communities Constituting the Fridays for Future movement in Brazil III. Social and Cultural Constructions of Media Imaginaries: Historical Accounts 7. American Evangelicals and the Imaginary Realm on Radio, 1920–70 8. Reorganizing the Postwar Scientific Record: Vannevar Bush’s Vision of “Memex” Index
Phillip H. Roth is a Media Sociologist and Science Studies Scholar, currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Käte Hamburger Kolleg: Cultures of Research, RWTH Aachen University, Germany. Ana María Guzmán Olmos is a Research Associate at the Käte Hamburger Kolleg: Cultures of Research, RWTH Aachen University, Germany, and a PhD candidate in Philosophy at the University of Bonn. Alin Olteanu is Associate Professor of Semiotics, Multimodality and Media Technologies at Shanghai International Studies University, China, and Associate Researcher with Babeș-Bolyai University Cluj-Napoca, Romania. Stefan Böschen is Professor for Society and Technology, Director of the Käte Hamburger Kolleg: Cultures of Research, and spokesperson of the Human Technology Center at RWTH Aachen University, Germany.
