On modes of (over)stimulation

Sampson, Tony D. (author), Markelj, Jernej (author), Lengua, Diana (author)

This paper examines contemporary feminist movements’ repertoires of action in Italy and Slovenia in response to informal challenges to abortion rights amidst the rise of anti-gender mobilizations and processes of de-democratization. While legal frameworks protecting abortion remain intact in both countries, informal barriers, forms of boycott and hijack of existing laws, such as misinformation, conscientious objection, and judgmental discourses undermine access to reproductive rights. This essay provides an introductory account of concerns over media stimulation through a series of critical lenses. Building on theoretical debates concerning the struggle for control of perception and the potential to rewire the human perceptual apparatus, we examine issues such as distraction, shock, and desensitization, and consider their significance in the contemporary mediascape. First, we map historical precedents theorizing the modern sensorium, including Georg Simmel’s account of the metropolis, Walter Benjamin’s concept of shock, and Marshall McLuhan’s notion of numbness. Second, we consider stimulation and overstimulation from a media-ecological perspective, which emphasizes entanglement between human subjects and computational technologies. We then reconsider pessimistic diagnoses of media (over)stimulation, seeking to nuance these accounts, and turn to emerging interfaces, such as neural media, to explore new frontiers of stimulation. Before introducing the inspired contributions to this special issue, we establish some guiding principles for a new media theory of (over)stimulation.

• Language: English
• Keywords: media stimulation, overstimulation, attention, shock, numbness, acceleration
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FF - Faculty of Arts
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Publication date: 22.06.2026
• Year: 2026
• Number of pages: Str. 1-28
• Numbering: Vol. 10, no. 1
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-185011
• UDC: 316.77
• ISSN on article: 2557-826X
• DOI: 10.70064/mt.v10i1.1364
• COBISS.SI-ID: 285443075
• Publication date in RUL: 20.07.2026

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Media theory
• Shortened title: Media theory
• Publisher: S. Dawes, Trent University Library & Archive
• ISSN: 2557-826X
• COBISS.SI-ID: 185175555

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: medijska stimulacija, preobremenjenost, dražljaji, pozornost, šok, otopelost, pospeševanje