Media Cultures of Value. Economy, Politics, and Art in WEB 3. Introduction

The recent surge in Bitcoin’s value and the emerging of Web3 as a new layer of the internet are reshaping digital infrastructures. While artifical intelligence (AI) dominates current discourse on digital technologies, blockchain technology has quietly influenced finance, governance, and digital ownership, thereby raising questions concerning datafication, decentralization and economic control. The introduction proposes media cultures of value as a framework to think about Web3. With this issue we explore the potential of Web3 to challenge platform capitalism or reinforce user control, examining the various values and ideological tensions that exist among blockchain ecosystems. The blockchain technology, as a networked medium intricately associated with finance, gives rise to different media cultures of value and, in turn, to different forms of digital governance models. Adopting a media studies perspective, this collection critically investigates the cultural, economic, political, and aesthetic implications of blockchain technology, seeking to do so beyond the scope of speculation and hype.