Media Scarcity: From Apartheid South Africa to the Cold War Bunker

Higher Seminar in Media and Communication Studies with Greg Elmer, visiting fellow from Toronto Metropolitan University

We propose to enter into dialogue with the political power of digital media through the lens of documentation, or rather the lack of media documents or objects. Set against theories of media “abundance’ and “overload” that seemingly overdetermine socio-political life (Andrejevic, Boczkowski 2021), we develop a theory of media scarcity in recognition of the mediatization of social and political life (Elmer 2020). While theories of media abundance highlight the disintegration of the public’s trust in journalism, politicians, experts and even facts, the media scarcity framework questions the political implications of having lost ones media documents and objects, be they family photos, diaries, letters, or videos.

We contend, in short, that media objects, of the sort we now routinely see posted and commented upon on social media platforms, serve to authenticate experiences and claims to social acceptance and political power. We subsequently ask the question, how does a media scarce existence impact particular claims to political entitlements as manifested through public campaigns to secure employment and other forms of income security, citizenship, adoptions, marriages or civil unions.

The media scarcity framework is applied to a number of groups who over the recent past have as a result of war, environmental devastation, incarceration, or persecution had to leave behind their homes and personal media documents. Some media scarce communities may have also chosen to assume other identities, go underground, or otherwise avoid being documented and identified by media technologies. In both cases we seek to determine how such communities later narrate and otherwise communicate their place in a media saturated world with little media documentation.

It will be possible to participate in the seminar both live on campus and digitally via Zoom (link attached). For more information, please contact saga.hansen@sh.se