Power

Abstract

Given the complexity in unpacking the diverse expressions of power that is enmeshed in/through digital cultural production in the twenty-first century, a discipline-bounded approach alone to understanding the nature of power is inadequate. What is needed is a review of key classical works on power so as to propose a unified understanding of power that evidences the robust nature of power more precisely. With this in place, the systematic empirical examination of digital power performance, which is the aim of this book, is then plausible. Accordingly, this chapter reviews and synthesizes key classical works that contribute to the theorizations of power from two major scholarly strands, critical scholarship and cultural studies. While the first strand contains authoritative works that have shaped, if not provided, the social theoretical underpinnings of contemporary critical discourse scholarship (i.e., (neo)Marxist perspectives of power as top-down), the second strand focuses on more culturally oriented conceptualizations of power as relational and nuanced. Collectively, the coalescence of these significant bodies of knowledges affords an understanding of power that is constantly reconstituting against the enduring backdrop of class conflict in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Europe. Thus, this sets the necessary foundation for the examination of digital power performance in the twenty-first century in subsequent chapters in this book.