"Short-Shelf Life Media. Ephemeral Digital Practices and the Contemporary Dream of Permanence"

In the contemporary culture of compulsive digitization and connectivity, the short-lived and the surplus emerge in many forms. The purpose of this chapter is to show how the enormous amount of extemporary and short products created, stored, and circulated online disguises concerns for decay that intersect with the overabundance of materials, therefore reflect- ing contemporary politics and discourse on the food supply, ecology, and recycling. I describe these media production practices and media use as “short-shelf life media.”