Last week Dr. Derek Hyrnyshyn came to McMaster University to discuss the launch of his newest publication The Limits of the Digital Revolution: How Mass Media Culture Endures in a Social Media World.
In this examination of the politics of digital culture, Dr. Hrynyshyn explores the ways in which social media shapes popular culture and how social power is expressed through them. By examining social media in their historical context – of emergence in a mass mediated cultural system – he critiques the dominant image of social media as social equalizer. The book argues that social media do as much to reproduce social inequalities as they do to challenge them.
Sharing the stage with Dr. Hyrnyshrn were McMaster University’s Department of Communication Studies & Multimedia faculty members Dr. Sara Bannerman, Dr. Philip Savage, and Dr. Dilyana Mincheva, all of whom engaged in a conversation surrounding the liberating and confining capabilities of social media.