Media Seas and the Blue Humanities: Studies of the High North Atlantic

This book contributes to the emerging field of the blue humanities by developing a critical media perspective on the technical, social, cultural, and historical mediation of knowledge, perception, and experience of the oceans. With contributions from leading scholars from across a diverse range of fields, this volume focuses on the environmental challenges experienced in the northern reaches of the North Atlantic Ocean. The authors define these areas as the High North Atlantic, characterized by significant temperature fluctuations and considerable geopolitical significance, and noted for experiencing many of the most severe impacts of climate change. Case studies consider the environmental impacts of offshore oil, fish farming, deep-sea mining, and other extractive industries as a result of operations conducted by neighboring countries such as Norway, Denmark, the UK, Iceland, Greenland, the USA, and Canada. A key focus is on technical mediation: the interactions between technologies, humans, and marine ecosystems, and by deploying a critical media perspective throughout, the book explores the construction of aquatic cultures and the ways in which maritime technologies organize ways of seeing, sensing, and comprehending the changing natures of the oceanic world. As an important addition to the blue humanities and environmental humanities in general, this interdisciplinary volume will appeal to scholars and students of media and communication studies, human geography, anthropology, environmental studies, cultural and technological history, visual studies, architecture, art history, and literature.