Critical Theory and the Digital

Acknowledgements Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: From Culture Industry to Computational Industries Chapter 3: The Softwarization of Society Chapter 4: Computational Ontologies Chapter 5: The Reification of Everyday Life Chapter 6: Computational Aesthetics Chapter 7: Critical Praxis and the Computational Chapter 8: Towards a Critical Theory of the Digital Bibliography Endnotes Index

David M. Berry is Reader in the School of Media, Film and Music, University of Sussex, UK.

'Adorno will not be your Facebook friend.' Instead of lamenting the cultural elitism of the Frankfurt School, David Berry reopens critical theory's conceptual toolbox with a renewed curiosity. These days the theorist is no longer a prophet who ponders the world divorced from the materiality of communication. It is not enough to merely explore the technosphere, there is an urgency to radically question digital technologies. In this age of conflict, the neoliberal consensus culture is taken to task by critical theory David-Berry-style. In line with the info-activism of Wikileaks and Snowden, Berry instructs us how to read the black box that dominates our everyday lives and helps us to develop a new vocabulary amidst all the crazes, from speculative realism to digital humanities. Geert Lovink, Media Theorist, Amsterdam Berry's timely book engages with a broad range of topics that define our digital culture. It guides us to the political materiality of software culture in with excellent insights. Importantly, this book updates critical theory for the digital age. Dr Jussi Parikka, Winchester School of Art, author of What is Media Archaeology? (2012) In this lucid, learned and highly original book Berry confronts the nature of digital knowledge in society through the re-invigorated lens of Critical Theory asking how we can regain control of the knowledge structures embedded in the digital technologies that we increasingly rely upon in daily life. Michael Bull, author of Sound Moves: iPod Culture and Urban Experience