ABSTRACT
This chapter considers three intertwined concepts – digitization, deterritorialization and disintermediation – as a way to understand screens, sounds and movement in physical cultural studies (PCS). PCS's emergence as a new trajectory in an area formerly dominated by sport science recognizes and celebrates 'the physical cultural turn' and the extent of cultural studies scholars' interest in a range of new topics and tropes. Digitization has many characteristics. The most important is mobility: ideas move through space and time. Deterritorialization, as a concept, captures how particular media platforms and communication systems de-emphasize our position in analogue space and time in favour of a virtual space and time. Disintermediation has transformed the music and publishing industries, alongside banking, stock trading and the purchase of hardware and software. Google is the midwife for online disintermediation, enabling the explosion of content from blogs, wikis, and podcasts, to be found through an initiative search box.
