Charting new territory for scholars in an understudied area, Devalue offers a socio-economic analysis of emerging Web3 actors who specialise in blockchain applications within the culture, media, and communication industries.
Based on rich research that includes comparative case studies focusing on organisations in North America and Europe using blockchain technology for the storage, production, and distribution of cultural contents and services, Jacob Matthews scrutinises whether blockchain-enabled platforms objectively reshape value production. Drawing together an analysis of two typically separated levels of political economy – the production of economic value and the production of ideology, the chapters critique the very concept of value, questioning if Web3 players, despite positioning themselves against the ‘civilisational reality’ of contemporary capitalism, merely reproduce conventional valorisation and reinforce the predominance of exchange abstraction.
Leading to a more profound critique of the concept of value itself and linking to broader political stakes and theoretical questions, Devalue is relevant for scholars and students including Information and Communication Science, Media Studies, Internet Studies, Critical Theory, Political Economy of Communications, Sociology, Socioeconomics, Philosophy, Society and Technology studies, and Digital Humanities.
Table of Contents:
Part 1. The Internet of Blockchains, a Brand New Web of Contrary Accounts
Chapter 1. The Ethos of Communities, and Blatant Individualism
Chapter 2. Disruption, or Perfecting Capitalism
Chapter 3. Pragmatic Solutionism, Total Commodification
Part 2. Making Lies, Making Value
Chapter 4. Communication, Labour, Ideology
Chapter 5. Performances of Value
Chapter 6. Gassy Arguments
Part 3. Flight, Grounded
Chapter 7. Slave Tokens
Chapter 8. Amaranthine
Chapter 9. Prepare for Landing
About the Author :
Jacob Matthews is Professor of Information and Communication Sciences at the Culture and Communication department of Paris VIII University, France. He is former director of the Cemti lab, founded by Armand Mattelart in 2000, and now a researcher at the LabSIC team of Sorbonne Paris Nord University, where he leads a program investigating links between AI and blockchain players in the culture and communication industries. He has specialised for the last fifteen years in the socio-economics of the web and culture industries.
