Critique is Dead – Long Live Critique: A response to Finlayson and Cusset

This piece offers some reflections and discussion points on the articles published by Alan Finlayson and François Cusset in this special edition of Media Theory. I argue the need to be cautious of tendencies towards techno-centrism even when so many of our lives are dominated by digital mediations; for the need to remember and take account of the longer history and prevailing influence of legacy media; to ensure that in our focus on front-stage politics we do not miss emphasising a critique of back-stage power and the growing influence of elites; that we must recognise that the myth of the value of inequality is not totalising and that it is surely the role of critique to identify the sites of its exposure; and finally the pressing urgency of reclaiming the emancipatory powers of critique.