Peter Funke New Media & Society, Volume 16, Number 3, 2014 Todd Wolfson and Peter N Funke Abstract Understanding class as a process of self-making in relation to a particular, historical form of capitalism, in this article we argue that media and communication (from face-to-face and old mediums such as radio to internet-powered tools) must be conceptualized as an emerging structural dimension for class formation. Based on ethnographic fieldwork on the Media Mobilizing Project in Philadelphia, a community-based media and communications infrastructure and a network of organizations across the region, we develop a conceptual approach we call concentric practices, which provides us with a framework of how contemporary class formation is occurring through the use of media and communications.
Triple C: Communication, Capitalism and Critique Volume 10, Number 1, 2012 Abstract Due to the increasingly atomized, isolated nature of social life, as well as the apparent splintering of the working class under neoliberal capitalism, media serve a pivotal infrastructural function for generating the necessary commonality between the fractured sectors of the contemporary working class. This article ethnographically and textually examines how the media driven practices of the Philadelphia-based Media Mobilizing Project helps collectively suture fragmented groups of workers into a class formation that begins to resist and challenge the hegemony of neoliberal practices.
Peter Funke Social Movement Studies, Volume 13, Issue 3, 2014DOI: 10.1080/14742837.2013.831755Peter Nikolaus Funkea & Todd Wolfsonb* pages 349-364 Published online: 19 Sep 2013 Abstract This article starts out by distinguishing between communication and communication mediums when examining social movement-powered formations of collective identity and collective action. We then focus on communication mediums to examine the different ways that old and new media are utilized in urban social movements under neoliberal capitalism.
