Steps Toward Cosmopolitanism in the Study of Media Technologies: Integrating Scholarship on Production, Consumption, Materiality, and Content

Scholarship on media technologies can be organized along two main dimensions of inquiry: the production or consumption of these technologies, and their content or material dimensions. This map of the field of inquiry would produce four specific research areas: the production of content, the consumption of content, the production of materiality, and the consumption of materiality. This chapter considers some opportunities that arise from reevaluating these traditions through the lens of cosmopolitanism. It promotes the crossing of these research areas in order to rethink assumptions and taken-for-granted processes. The chapter proposes steps toward cosmopolitanism in the study of media technologies by considering the theoretical, methodological, pedagogical, and design implications of conducting research at the intersection of these four areas.