ABSTRACT
This chapter considers how social and cultural contexts shape the production and interpretation of media products. In doing so, it consider the rise of the hashtag as a mechanism of interaction and organisation in the changing social and cultural contexts around gender and race. It also considers how the ways we consume media is changed by technology in sometimes surprising ways by focusing on the resurgence of so-called event TV. It uses the Scandi drama The Bridge to explore the changing representations of disability and difference. The chapter goes on to examine how digital technology has altered entirely our relationship with ‘media’ (and made the unitary form ‘the media’ effectively redundant). It explores Fandom, Clay Shirky’s end of the audience theory, the We the Media episode and participatory and convergence culture through the work of Henry Jenkins. The power of the connected culture is emphasised in the case of the campaign #blacklivesmatter.
