Media Technologies and Epistemologies: The Platforming of Everything| Media Technologies and Epistemologies: The Platforming of Everything—Introduction

Abstract

This editorial introduction contextualizes seven articles examining developments in media communications against emerging and other Web-based technologies. The analysis combines to account for the role played by platforms and the tensions as well as innovations resulting from adaptations in user behaviors. From hologram-based haptics to online gaming, these technologies extend beyond many of the current considerations being given to artificial intelligence (AI) and the impact from machine learning technologies. Multiple technological developments contribute to the ongoing disruption that is redefining and repurposing global media ecology. Together, the seven articles chart the rise of emerging user behaviors and corollaries like the negotiating of platform logics and governance. Providing timely insight to developments in contemporary online culture, the Special Section prompts reevaluation of some time-honored media histories and epistemologies.