“Epistemology Not Ideology OR Why We Need New Germans”

This article argues for a shift away from ideology critique as the primary focus of critical communication and media studies. Instead, the author suggests enlisting the work of German Media theorist Friedrich Kittler's Foucault-inspired approach to the epistemological dimensions of media. This focus is relevant to digital media in terms of the selection, storage, and processing of data that are the fundamental concerns of Kittler's media studies. Advertising and drone warfare are used as examples of how this approach differs from ideological critique.