Environments and heterotopias:

approaches between Foucault and McLuhan

Abstract

This article proposes an approximation between the concept of heterotopia, developed by Foucault, and the McLuhanian notions of environment and counter-environment. The aim is to understand how certain differentiations in digital media spaces have become possible through the construction of other communicational spaces. From the perspective of the Semiotics of Culture, we understand that there is a process of critical translation, which occurs through the appropriations that certain cultural contexts make of technological tools. As empirical objects, we analyze the media expressions of two activist collectives whose subjectivities differ from the ideology of big tech companies.