Media Ideologies: An Introduction

This volume began with the question: what analytical possibilities can scholarly work on language ideologies offer the study of media? Studying media ideologies is not new, but calling the metalanguage that emphasizes the technology or bodies through which we communicate a "media ideology" is. By examining media ideologies, the authors in this volume are building on previous ethnographies of how people on the ground understand the ways the medium shapes the message (see e.g., Barker 2008; Schieffelin 2000; Spitulnik 1998/1999). Media ideologies as a term can sharpen a focus on how people understand both the communicative possibilities and the material limitations of a specific channel, and how they conceive of channels in general.