William Merrin
Biographic Data
| ID | 253051 |
|---|---|
| NAME | William Merrin |
| GIVEN NAMES | William |
| FAMILY NAME | Merrin |
| SIGNATURE | MERRIN W |
| AFFILIATIONS | Swansea University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4811-1204 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 13 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 40 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 12 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1994 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2021 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
From television to the internet
9/11 was the defining terroristic spectacle of the broadcast-era. It was the culmination, less of an era of violence, than of its mode of mass-mediation in the west. The images of the smoking tower
Anthropocenic war
This paper argues that the covid-19 coronavirus pandemic of 2019-2020 constituted the first Anthropocenic war: as an anthropogenic virus and biological attack on the human body and as the first global pandemic requiring a truly global response since our recognition of the Anthropocene. The paper explores how each nation was forced by the virus into a pause of global connections and relationships and a war against the human body, with the 'total d…
Trump’s Media War
Media Studies 2.0
Media Studies 2.0 offers an exploration of the digital revolution and its consequences for media and communication studies, arguing that the new era requires an upgraded discipline: a media studies 2.0. The book traces the history of mass-media and computing, exploring their merger at the end of the twenty-century and the material, ecological, cultural and personal elements of this digital transformation. It considers the history of media and com…
Media Studies 2. 0
The Rise of the Gadget and Hyperludic Me-Dia
Though digital “gadgets” have become one of the most important sectors of consumer electronics, the concept itself has been largely overlooked. This article traces the history of the gadget from its nineteenth-century origins as a placeholding name to its use for a class of technical objects, through to its incorporation of electronics and its contemporary success. Building upon Jean Baudrillard’s analysis, the article explores how digital techno…
Still Fighting “the Beast
This critical reflection on the work of the Raindance Corporation and Michael Shamberg and their manifesto, Guerrilla Television (1971), considers their video activism as a precursor to both YouTube and contemporary “participatory culture” and offers an important critique of these later forms. The essay traces the history of the Raindance Corporation and then considers Shamberg's media-ecological critique of broadcasting and defense of democratiz…
After the End' Baudrillard's Future
Resisting the closure offered by most obituaries upon the death of Jean Baudrillard, this paper considers instead what remains unknown and unexplored in Baudrillard's work. It offers an overview of his career and reception, highlighting the aporias in our critical understanding of his development and ideas, as well as considering the question of his own theoretical methodology and the problem of how his project can continue with his demise. The p…
Implosion, simulation and the pseudo-event
Recent years have seen a renewed interest in Marshall McLuhan's media theory. For many, his description of an electronic society and culture is more recognizable today than it was in his lifetime, and his influence is discernible in the work of many contemporary media thinkers and in the concerns of mainstream media and cultural studies. Despite the common identification of Jean Baudrillard as one of the most important McLuhanists, and even as 't…
To play with phantoms
It is only by historically contextualizing Baudrillard's concept of the simulacrum that we can understand its form and effects – its historical efficacy,its nihilistic ungrounding of certain epistemological foundations, its subsequent demonization in the West, and the latter's attempt to domesticate its power. Baudrillard opposes the contemporary simulacrum with the Durkheimian symbolic but, as a privileged critical site functioning as the 'real'…
Crash, bang, wallop! What a picture! The death of Diana and the media
While the role of the media in the death of Princess Diana and the events of the following week is widely recognized, the popular explanations of this role are often simplistic or uncritical. This paper draws upon contemporary media theory to argue that the death of Diana represents one of the most important recent examples of a media event in which event, broadcast and audience interpenetrate to render questions of truth and falsity, original an…
Television is Killing the Art of Symbolic Exchange
The starting point for any understanding of Jean Baudrillard's media theory is his concept of 'communication'. This is heavily indebted to his theory of symbolic exchange, drawn from the Durkheimian tradition running through Durkheim, Mauss, Caillois and Bataille. Common to all these authors is s specific view of human relations, derived from their anthropology, as involving both a communication and a confrontation. Baudrillard, therefore, sees t…
Uncritical criticism? Norris, Baudrillard and the Gulf War
This paper offers a reflection upon Jean Baudrillard's controversial writing on the Gulf War in his 1991 work La Guerre du Golfe n'a pas eu lieu, and its reception in English criticism, particularly in Christopher Norris's influential Uncritical Theory (1992). Firstly, this paper reviews Baudrillard's three essays to establish their argument within the context of the events of the time. It then moves to review and criticize Norris's claims that B…
Media Studies 2.0
Media Studies 2.0 offers an exploration of the digital revolution and its consequences for media and communication studies, arguing that the new era requires an upgraded discipline: a media studies 2.0. The book traces the history of mass-media and computing, exploring their merger at the end of the twenty-century and the material, ecological, cultural and personal elements of this digital transformation. It considers the history of media and com…
Television is Killing the Art of Symbolic Exchange
The starting point for any understanding of Jean Baudrillard's media theory is his concept of 'communication'. This is heavily indebted to his theory of symbolic exchange, drawn from the Durkheimian tradition running through Durkheim, Mauss, Caillois and Bataille. Common to all these authors is s specific view of human relations, derived from their anthropology, as involving both a communication and a confrontation. Baudrillard, therefore, sees t…
Uncritical criticism? Norris, Baudrillard and the Gulf War
This paper offers a reflection upon Jean Baudrillard's controversial writing on the Gulf War in his 1991 work La Guerre du Golfe n'a pas eu lieu, and its reception in English criticism, particularly in Christopher Norris's influential Uncritical Theory (1992). Firstly, this paper reviews Baudrillard's three essays to establish their argument within the context of the events of the time. It then moves to review and criticize Norris's claims that B…
To play with phantoms
It is only by historically contextualizing Baudrillard's concept of the simulacrum that we can understand its form and effects – its historical efficacy,its nihilistic ungrounding of certain epistemological foundations, its subsequent demonization in the West, and the latter's attempt to domesticate its power. Baudrillard opposes the contemporary simulacrum with the Durkheimian symbolic but, as a privileged critical site functioning as the 'real'…
Anthropocenic war
This paper argues that the covid-19 coronavirus pandemic of 2019-2020 constituted the first Anthropocenic war: as an anthropogenic virus and biological attack on the human body and as the first global pandemic requiring a truly global response since our recognition of the Anthropocene. The paper explores how each nation was forced by the virus into a pause of global connections and relationships and a war against the human body, with the 'total d…
The Rise of the Gadget and Hyperludic Me-Dia
Though digital “gadgets” have become one of the most important sectors of consumer electronics, the concept itself has been largely overlooked. This article traces the history of the gadget from its nineteenth-century origins as a placeholding name to its use for a class of technical objects, through to its incorporation of electronics and its contemporary success. Building upon Jean Baudrillard’s analysis, the article explores how digital techno…
Implosion, simulation and the pseudo-event
Recent years have seen a renewed interest in Marshall McLuhan's media theory. For many, his description of an electronic society and culture is more recognizable today than it was in his lifetime, and his influence is discernible in the work of many contemporary media thinkers and in the concerns of mainstream media and cultural studies. Despite the common identification of Jean Baudrillard as one of the most important McLuhanists, and even as 't…
Uncritical criticism? Norris, Baudrillard and the Gulf War
This paper offers a reflection upon Jean Baudrillard's controversial writing on the Gulf War in his 1991 work La Guerre du Golfe n'a pas eu lieu, and its reception in English criticism, particularly in Christopher Norris's influential Uncritical Theory (1992). Firstly, this paper reviews Baudrillard's three essays to establish their argument within the context of the events of the time. It then moves to review and criticize Norris's claims that B…
Crash, bang, wallop! What a picture! The death of Diana and the media
While the role of the media in the death of Princess Diana and the events of the following week is widely recognized, the popular explanations of this role are often simplistic or uncritical. This paper draws upon contemporary media theory to argue that the death of Diana represents one of the most important recent examples of a media event in which event, broadcast and audience interpenetrate to render questions of truth and falsity, original an…
Television is Killing the Art of Symbolic Exchange
The starting point for any understanding of Jean Baudrillard's media theory is his concept of 'communication'. This is heavily indebted to his theory of symbolic exchange, drawn from the Durkheimian tradition running through Durkheim, Mauss, Caillois and Bataille. Common to all these authors is s specific view of human relations, derived from their anthropology, as involving both a communication and a confrontation. Baudrillard, therefore, sees t…
To play with phantoms
It is only by historically contextualizing Baudrillard's concept of the simulacrum that we can understand its form and effects – its historical efficacy,its nihilistic ungrounding of certain epistemological foundations, its subsequent demonization in the West, and the latter's attempt to domesticate its power. Baudrillard opposes the contemporary simulacrum with the Durkheimian symbolic but, as a privileged critical site functioning as the 'real'…
Implosion, simulation and the pseudo-event
Recent years have seen a renewed interest in Marshall McLuhan's media theory. For many, his description of an electronic society and culture is more recognizable today than it was in his lifetime, and his influence is discernible in the work of many contemporary media thinkers and in the concerns of mainstream media and cultural studies. Despite the common identification of Jean Baudrillard as one of the most important McLuhanists, and even as 't…
After the End' Baudrillard's Future
Resisting the closure offered by most obituaries upon the death of Jean Baudrillard, this paper considers instead what remains unknown and unexplored in Baudrillard's work. It offers an overview of his career and reception, highlighting the aporias in our critical understanding of his development and ideas, as well as considering the question of his own theoretical methodology and the problem of how his project can continue with his demise. The p…
Still Fighting “the Beast
This critical reflection on the work of the Raindance Corporation and Michael Shamberg and their manifesto, Guerrilla Television (1971), considers their video activism as a precursor to both YouTube and contemporary “participatory culture” and offers an important critique of these later forms. The essay traces the history of the Raindance Corporation and then considers Shamberg's media-ecological critique of broadcasting and defense of democratiz…
Media Studies 2.0
Media Studies 2.0 offers an exploration of the digital revolution and its consequences for media and communication studies, arguing that the new era requires an upgraded discipline: a media studies 2.0. The book traces the history of mass-media and computing, exploring their merger at the end of the twenty-century and the material, ecological, cultural and personal elements of this digital transformation. It considers the history of media and com…
Media Studies 2. 0
The Rise of the Gadget and Hyperludic Me-Dia
Though digital “gadgets” have become one of the most important sectors of consumer electronics, the concept itself has been largely overlooked. This article traces the history of the gadget from its nineteenth-century origins as a placeholding name to its use for a class of technical objects, through to its incorporation of electronics and its contemporary success. Building upon Jean Baudrillard’s analysis, the article explores how digital techno…
Trump’s Media War
Anthropocenic war
This paper argues that the covid-19 coronavirus pandemic of 2019-2020 constituted the first Anthropocenic war: as an anthropogenic virus and biological attack on the human body and as the first global pandemic requiring a truly global response since our recognition of the Anthropocene. The paper explores how each nation was forced by the virus into a pause of global connections and relationships and a war against the human body, with the 'total d…
From television to the internet
9/11 was the defining terroristic spectacle of the broadcast-era. It was the culmination, less of an era of violence, than of its mode of mass-mediation in the west. The images of the smoking tower
Sociology (9 works) · Political science (7 works) · Computer Science (6 works) · Law (6 works) · Media studies (6 works) · Philosophy (6 works) · Epistemology (5 works) · Law (5 works) · Art, Politics, and Modernism (3 works) · History (3 works)