This collection intends to fill a long overdue research gap on the praxeological aspects of the relationships between disabilities, accessibility, and digital gaming. It will focus on the question of how Game Studies can profit from a Disability Studies perspective of en-/disabling gaming and issues of disability, (in)accessibility and ableism, and vice versa. Instead of departing from the medical model of disability that informs a wide range of publications on “disabled� gaming and that preconceives users as either “able-bodied,� “normal� or as “disabled,� “deficit,� or “unable to play,� our central premise is that dis/ability is not an essential characteristic of the playing subject. We rather intend to analyze the complex infrastructures of playing, i.e., the complex interplay of heterogeneous human and non-human actors, that are en- or disabling. 

Actor-Network Theory (ANT), originally a social theory, seeks to organize objects and non-human entities into social networks. Its most innovative claim approaches these networks outside the anthropocentric view, including both humans and non-human objects as active participants in a social context; because of this, the theory has applications in a myriad of domains, not merely in the social sciences. Applying the Actor-Network Theory in Media Studies applies this novel approach to media studies. This publication responds to the current trends in international media studies by presenting ANT as the new theoretical paradigm through which meaningful discussion and analysis of the media, its production, and its social and cultural effects. Featuring both case studies and theoretical and methodical meditations, this timely publication thoroughly considers the possibilities of these disparate, yet divergent fields. This book is intended for use by researchers, students, sociologists, and media analysts concerned with contemporary media studies.

Outlines how in modern societies hearing, health and sound technologies are entangled in multi-faceted ways. The book brings together, for the first time, historians, scholars from media studies, social sciences, cultural studies, acoustics and neuroscientists to show and discuss how modern technologies play a decisive role in the ways 'normal', enhanced or 'smart' hearing as well as hearing impairment have been configured and experienced. Addresses current hearing practices that become increasingly mediated by personalized hearing technologies and aids that engage with continuously changing sonic situations along advanced algorithms and intuitive apps.

Der Band reflektiert Forschungspraktiken, die fur das Projekt der Biokybernetik wie der aktuellen bionischen Prothetik und Medienoekologie charakteristisch sind: die Suche nach einem dritten Weg zwischen Technologisierung des Bios und Biologisierung von Technik. Durch ihre moeglichst dichten Beschreibungen der jeweiligen wechselseitigen Affizierungs- und Teilhabeprozesse zwischen Mensch und Technik tragen die wissenschaftshistorischen, philosophischen, kultur- und medienwissenschaftlichen Beitrage dazu bei, den Blick auf die bewusste Annaherung der Zwei Kulturen durch die gegenwartigen Lebens- und Kulturwissenschaften zu erweitern. Dies wird u.a. durch die Kontextualisierung der Debatten in Bezug auf das Verhaltnis zwischen Maschinen und Organismen sowie Artifiziellem und Naturlichem geleistet.