Book Review: Noise Channels: Glitch And Error In Digital Culture Peter Krapp Minneapolis: University Of Minnesota Press, 2011, isbn 978-0-81-667625-5

• Published in: Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture
• Main Author: Leorke, Dale
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: University of Westminster Press 2012
• Subjects: Dyer; Grieg; Terranova
• Online Access: https://www.westminsterpapers.org/jms/article/view/wpcc.158; https://doi.org/10.16997/wpcc.158

Digital media studies has developed something of a fascination with the potential for users to rework the architecture of digital technologies for the purposes of creativity. In 2004 there was McKenzie Wark’s A Hacker Manifesto, whose ‘hacker class’ appear as the primary resistance against intellectual property control and its apologists in the mass media industries. In the same year, Network Culture by Tiziana Terranova appeared, which built on her earlier critique of ‘free labour’ and the ‘exploitation’ of digital workers by the creative industries. These have since been followed by a growing number of critical accounts of digital culture by theorists from various fi elds, though perhaps most notably within game studies. In particular, two books – by Alexander Galloway (2006) and Grieg de Peuter and Nick Dyer-Witheford (2009) – examine the political economy and power structures underpinning the videogame industry. These works frame videogames and gaming culture as a site of contestation, resistance and ‘counter-mobilisation’ by players against the game industry’s ethos of ‘play as work’.