"Collective political projects have become ephemeral and are subject to radical forms of erasure through cooptation, division, redefinition or intimidation in present times. Media and Utopia responds to the resulting crisis of the social by investigating the links between mediation and political imagination. This volume addresses those utopian spaces historically constituted through media, and analyses the conditions that made them possible. Individual essays deal with non-Western histories of technopolitics through distinctive perspectives on how to conceive the relationship between social form, everyday life, and utopian possibility, and by examining a range of media formats and genres ? from print, sound, and film to new media. With contributions from major scholars in the field, this book will be of interest to researchers and scholars of media studies, culture studies, sociology, modern South Asian history, and politics."--Provided by publisher.

Collective political projects have become ephemeral and are subject to radical forms of erasure through cooptation, division, redefinition or intimidation in present times. Media and Utopia responds to the resulting crisis of the social by investigating the links between mediation and political imagination. This volume addresses those utopian spaces historically constituted through media, and analyses the conditions that made them possible. Individual essays deal with non-Western histories of technopolitics through distinctive perspectives on how to conceive the relationship between social form, everyday life, and utopian possibility, and by examining a range of media formats and genres from print, sound, and film to new media. With contributions from major scholars in the field, this book will be of interest to researchers and scholars of media studies, culture studies, sociology, modern South Asian history, and politics.

"This volume grew out of a conference seeking to explore the broad theme of global futures and the visions of justice and modes of collectivity that underwrite them. The conference was conceived in the wake of popular movements that suddenly became prominent--such as the Arab Spring, Occupy (Wall Street), and recently, the #StandWithJNU and the anticorruption campaign in India'--Page 1.

This book explores the history, theory, practice, politics, and efficacy of hoaxing through an in-depth study of the Yes Men, one of the most important media activist groups to have emerged in the past two decades. Better known as humorous deceptions or politically motivated deceptive actions, media hoaxes are increasingly being used by activists seeking to change the world by drawing attention to abuses of power by corporations and governments. In this regard, the Yes Men are the unrivaled masters of the media hoax. By blending cutting political satire, outlandish humor, and sobering social criticism, they expose the wrongdoings of the world’s most powerful institutions to make them more accountable, transparent, and responsible to the public. These interventions serve as compelling case studies from which to explore two defining tensions underpinning all activist endeavors—failure and success. In situating the Yes Men’s work in relation to failure and success, discussions surrounding the defining realities of activist struggle come to the fore, creating room for greater emphasis on cycles of activist innovation, adaptation, and renewal. Thus, this book sheds light on why media hoaxing has emerged as a significant 21st century activist practice and makes a case for the significance of the media hoax as a positive force in the articulation of utopian politics.

In Gaming Utopia: Ludic Worlds in Art, Design, and Media, Claudia Costa Pederson analyzes modernist avant-garde and contemporary video games to challenge the idea that gaming is an exclusively white, heterosexual, male, corporatized leisure activity and reenvisions it as a catalyst for social change. By looking at over fifty projects that together span a century and the world, Pederson explores the capacity for sociopolitical commentary in virtual and digital realms and highlights contributions to the history of gaming by women, queer, and transnational artists. The result is a critical tool for understanding video games as imaginative forms of living that offer alternatives to our current reality. With an interdisciplinary approach, Gaming Utopia emphasizes how game design, creation, and play can become political forms of social protest and examines the ways that games as art open doors to a more just and peaceful world.

A freewheeling, sharp-shooting indictment of a tech-besotted culture. With razor wit, Nicholas Carr cuts through Silicon Valley’s unsettlingly cheery vision of the technological future to ask a hard question: Have we been seduced by a lie? Gathering a decade’s worth of posts from his blog, Rough Type, as well as his seminal essays, Utopia Is Creepy is “Carr’s best hits for those who missed the last decade of his stream of thoughtful commentary about our love affair with technology and its effect on our relationships” (Richard Cytowic, New York Journal of Books). Carr draws on artists ranging from Walt Whitman to the Clash, while weaving in the latest findings from science and sociology. Carr’s favorite targets are those zealots who believe so fervently in computers and data that they abandon common sense. Cheap digital tools do not make us all the next Fellini or Dylan. Social networks, diverting as they may be, are not vehicles for self-enlightenment. And “likes” and retweets are not going to elevate political discourse. Utopia Is Creepy compels us to question the technological momentum that has trapped us in its flow. “Resistance is never futile,” argues Carr, and this book delivers the proof.

Explores the notion of identities, ideologies, and cultural discourse in contemporary global punk scenes. Punk Identities, Punk Utopias unpacks punk and the factors that shape its increasingly complex and indefinable social, political, and economic setting. The third offering in Intellect's Global Punk series, produced in collaboration with the Punk Scholars Network, this volume examines the broader social, political, and technological concerns that affect punk scenes around the world, from digital technology and new media to gender, ethnicity, identity, and representation. Drawing on scholarship in cultural studies, musicology, and social sciences, this interdisciplinary collection will add to the academic discussion of contemporary popular culture, particularly in relation to punk and the critical understanding of transnational and cross-cultural dialogue.