Media time squeezing: The privatization of the media time sphere

Lately, the sense of chronic time pressure promotes the need for a reexamination of media temporal configuration. The basic assumption of this article is that the spread of neoliberalist ideas, together with technological innovations (e.g., digital TV, digital remote control, and digital video recorder), has encouraged the privatization of media time, leading to the experience of media time squeezing. To be more concrete, multichannel applications allow control over viewing schedules, time settings, and time flow. But while the diffusion of digital technological platforms has made privatization of the television time sphere possible, the regulation of these technologies is based on state time management subject to traditional, linear, nontechnological principles. Moreover, even though neoliberalism facilitates systematic deregulation and privatization in the arena of television and new media, one cannot overlook the dualism sustained between technological vision and cultural substantiation.