ABSTRACT
This chapter proposes two things: First, that political economy of digital technologies (PEDT) has its roots in political economy of media and communication (PEMC) and that it has developed from PEMC; second, that PEDT has developed with a number of significant transformations and expansions. The theoretical roots of PEMC – at least, their critical tradition – are usually located in Marxism. PEMC did not – or better, could not – use many concepts central to Marx's political economy such as labour, value, commodity, property, and alienation for an analysis of mass media. According to Marx, human society consists of two parts, a base and a superstructure. The material base consists of the forces and relations of production, while the superstructure refers to the non-material realm, culture, religion, ideas, values, and norms. The relationship between base and superstructure is reciprocal; however, in the last instance, the base determines the superstructure.
