Philosophy of Emerging Media

The permeation of everyday life by what we call here “emerging
media” is evident, ubiquitous, and destined to accelerate. No longer
are images, institutions, social networks, thoughts, acts of communication, emotions, and speech—the “media” by means of which
we express ourselves in daily life—linked to clearly demarcated,
stable entities and contexts. Instead, the loci of meaning within
which these occur shift in quick, far-reaching ways we can only
begin to comprehend, and never fast enough to suffice. We are all
living a grand technological experiment: never before has it been
possible for a single tweet to be broadcast instantly to two billion
people. In another sense, however, it is not possible for any single
individual to understand the meaning of the tweet. Corporate
actors like Facebook are performing experiments on social networks, just as we ourselves experiment with handheld apps and the
reactions of our friends to social-media endeavors. Given the continuous innovations and transformations, meaning and opportunity appear, flourish, and ebb within specific socio cultural locales
and digital object frameworks; some become institutionalized and
ritualized in traditional ways, others do so in disruptive and transgressive ways. As such, we who are concerned about philosophical
questions face a vast and rapidly emerging transformation of
human enterprise and existence.
The present volume’s purpose is to at once be foundational and
to broaden and spark future philosophical discussion of emerging
media. Drawing from the rich history of philosophical insights,
contemporary intellectual pathmakers offer philosophical perspectives, laying the groundwork for future work engaging philosophy
and media studies.