Media

From TV bulletins to social media newsfeeds, the media plays a massive role in shaping the world as we see it. In fact, different media have helped make possible our world of independent nations, binding together disparate communities through shared cultural touchstones, such as the press and national broadcasters. With the transfer of people's lives to the online world, the media has become crucial to almost every aspect of how human beings live. A new social order is being built through our relations with media, but what power over us does this give to corporations and governments?

Nick Couldry explains the significance of five core dimensions of media: representing, connecting, imagining, sharing and governing. He shows that understanding these dynamics is a vital skill that every person needs in the digital age, when the fate of our political worlds and social environment may rest on how we communicate with each other.

Nick Couldry is a sociologist of media and culture. He is currently Professor of Media Communications and Social Theory at the London School of Economics and Political Science. After earlier careers as lawyer and musician, Nick did his PhD in Media and Communications at Goldsmiths, University of London, where he became Professor of Media and Communications in 2006. He has been a Visiting Professor at MIT, University of Technology Sydney, Stockholm and Södertörn Universities in Sweden, and Roskilde University, Denmark.  He has been a Visiting Researcher at Microsoft Research Lab, New England and a Faculty Associate of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard. This is his fourteenth book. Recent books include The Costs of Connection: How Data is Colonizing Human Life and Appropriating it for Capitalism (with Ulises Mejias, Stanford University Press, 2019), The Mediated Construction of Reality (with Andreas Hepp, Polity, 2016), Media, Society, World (Polity, 2012) and Why Voice Matters (Sage, 2010). Between 2015 and 2018 he was joint lead of the Chapter on Media and Communications in the report of the International Panel on Social Progress.