Digital media images: A New Political Economy of Light

In this intervention, I try to introduce a reflection on the status that images have acquired within the complex system of contemporary media, often referred to as digital capitalism, data capitalism or platform society. My speech, therefore, moves between media studies and visual culture studies – though, in the final part, I will propose a dialogue between these disciplines and the political economy of material and symbolic resources. To conduct this reflection, I use an example that seems to me profoundly revealing: the video filters for face distortion or manipulation effects that are spreading with impressive speed on various social platforms and particularly on Instagram.