New Books in Science, Technology, and Society Patrick Brodie and Darin Barney eds., "Media Rurality" (Duke UP, 2026)
May 3, 2026
Burç Köstem, scholar of peripheries and infrastructure in Turkey; Megan Wiessner, researcher on green data capitalism and ruralization; Patrick Brodie, researcher on data centers and rural media industries; Darin Barney, researcher of rural media and political economy. They explore infrastructure as a lens on rural mediation. Topics include green data capitalism, data centers and energy, colonial infrastructures, mega-projects, and infrastructural path dependency.
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Extractivism Underpins Media Infrastructures
- Extractivism is central to rural mediation: infrastructures channel materials, energy, and labor from rural zones to urban or corporate centers.
- Brodie links infrastructural siting to long histories of colonial underdevelopment and modern political subjectivities.
Infrastructure Reveals Political Economies Of Rurality
- Using infrastructure as an analytic lens reveals how extractive economic forms and subjectivities form around media technologies in rural zones.
- Brodie links infrastructural placement to political mobilizations and uneven development in Ireland and beyond.
Design Comparative Workshops With Wide Geographic Reach
- When assembling comparative infrastructure research, prioritize geographic diversity to surface global patterns and local variations.
- Brodie and Barney ran a 2022 symposium in Montreal and recruited contributors from Ireland, Canada, US, Indonesia, and Tanzania to map shared themes.
