The Neodiluvian Age

Abstract

This paper examines the “new/old media” dichotomy as a product of capital’s control over cultural labour. It argues that any meaningful distinction can only be drawn between their distribution methods rather than their content. Any perceived differences in the content of new and old media exist only in the minds of audiences and creators rather than in the text of the media. In this way, these differences constitute a phantom divide. The development of internet-based advertisement models takes advantage of these novel distribution methods but also homogenizes new media, compressing all forms into mere “content.” This compression is then exploited by capital holders to limit worker rights and labour costs. I argue that the phantom divide is a major contributing factor to the precarity of cultural labour in the digital age, substituting traditionally valuable celebrity for tenuously valued “efame,” and trampling workplace benefits afforded to labourers in traditional media industries.