New Books in Critical Theory Patrick Brodie and Darin Barney eds., "Media Rurality" (Duke UP, 2026)
May 3, 2026
Burç Köstem, assistant professor studying media and technology, walks the outskirts of Istanbul and traces mega-projects and construction waste. Megan Wiessner, postdoctoral researcher on digital tech and democracy, maps green data capitalism and cases like Microsoft FarmBeats. Patrick Brodie, information scholar, recounts Marconi stations and data centers in rural landscapes. Darin Barney, infrastructure and political economy scholar, ties rural mediation to colonial and capitalist circuits.
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Use Infrastructure To Read Rural Inequality
- Infrastructure is the key lens the editors use to reveal urban–rural inequalities and extractive economies.
- Patrick Brodie links data centers and high-tech industries to long-standing colonial and postcolonial geographies of underdevelopment.
Global Media Systems Are Rural Phenomena
- The title inversion media rurality signals that global media systems are themselves rural phenomena.
- Darin Barney argues infrastructures, satellites, and data centers traverse and are sited in rural landscapes, shaping media globally.
Prioritize Geographic Diversity In Rural Media Research
- When assembling comparative studies of rural mediation, prioritize geographic diversity to reveal varied political economies.
- The editors organized a 2022 workshop with contributors across Ireland, Canada, US, Indonesia, and Tanzania to map global patterns.
