Theorizing failure in digital media. Four eclectic theses

This article focuses on the concept of 'failure' in relation to digital media, their development and appropriation in social contexts. In the first part, the article provides an overview of the category of failure for understanding digital media, addressing some of the most relevant contributions from several fields of study, including Science & Technology Studies (STS), History of Communication, Media Archaeology, and Post-Digital Art Aesthetics. In the second part, this sketched theoretical landscape is developed through the presentation of four 'eclectic' theses on failure in digital media, with the aim of inviting media scholars to reconsider some of the most recurrent assumptions about the development of digital media through a perspective focused on the notion of failure.