Media and Class in the Twenty-first Century

This chapter introduces the Routledge Companion to Media and Class with a brief review of how media have historically been studied in association with modern class formations, and argues that questions of media and class in the twenty-first century require a broad understanding of a context in which rapid technological change is occurring in ways that are reconfiguring the expectations between differing members of societies with their variegated access to material and technological resources. The chapter argues that an examination of the everyday is an important place to start as scholars seek to better understand class in relation to how intersectional tensions around the mobility and digitization of media are mediated and negotiated in an era of globalization, providing examples. Finally, the chapter includes a discussion of the 24 contributions that make up the collection overall.