Thoughts on
and iNTERPRETATIONS OF mediatization
'Although the notion of mediatization lacks certainly an exact definition, it seems doubtlessly useful indicating some of the fundamental social transformations that have occurred in our lives in the last decades. Intuitively, the word seems to capture the changes that occur in our perceptions of the world and how we act in it. However, there is quite substantial disagreement as to what the word may mean in theoretical terms and in terms of empirical research. The disagreement is not so much routed in the lack of definition or ambiguity of definition but rather in the lack of a theoretical framework in which the two most divergent aspects of its meaning can be understood. On the one hand, mediatization refers to ‘‘a metaprocess of the change of media,’’ on the other hand, it is a ‘‘microprocess affecting human actors and their social relation’’ (Krotz, 2012, p. 36).'
'By redefining communicative action as the basic process in the social construction of reality, this approach is built on a convergence of various theoretical strands relevant to the analysis of communication in contemporary society.'
'Before we consider the social order that emerges from sequentiality, one should be aware of an important consequence that arises from conceiving of communicative action as embodied action. Since any such interpretation of action is essentially linked to the body, it defies any distinction between behavior as a ‘‘meaningless’’ performance from a biological body and ‘‘action’’ as an ‘‘intentional’’ act of the bodyless mind. This statement seems daring, yet if we accept that our notion of beauty, gender, or health is socially constructed, the logical consequence is to assume that our body’s performance is meaningful. In this sense one could compare communicative action to what Schatzki (1996) calls ‘‘social practices’’ (including ‘‘doings’’ and ‘‘sayings’’). However, though practice theory considers these practices as ‘‘subconscious,’’ communicative constructivism considers them as a form of knowledge which has to be acquired by, and depends on, activities of subjective consciousness. Thus, if we walk or wander, read letters or play soccer, we may consider all these forms of action to have been acquired by processes of consciousness such as sedimentation, routinization, and habitualization.'
'If one asks why mediatization became so important in ‘‘mediatized modernity’’ (Lash in Lundby, 2009), one cannot escape the role of interactivity. Interactivity is most often identified as the exchange of behavioral sequences between human actors and technologies. As clearly as the observation of these sequences focuses on the body, it typically neglects the very forms of communicative action which are performed in these sequences.'
'A series of authors, particularly involved in the study of communication media, have stressed that technologies of mediation allow us to cross the ‘‘orbits’’ and enter into the face-to-face situation. Thus Thompson (1994), Ho ̈flich (2005) and Krotz (2001) suggest a mixed form of interpersonal mediated interaction which accounts for the massive ‘‘penetration’’ of communication technologies into face- to-face interaction and their ‘‘domestication’’ (Lundby, 2009). Within the sociology of technology, this intersection of social action with technology has been said to cause a differentiation of actions and the creation of a form of social action through technologies called ‘‘interactivity’’ (Rammert, 2012). Probably the most radical reaction to the mediating role of technologies has been formulated by Latour as part of the ‘‘Actor Network Theory.’’ His radicalism is not only due to the fact that he accepts technologies as ‘‘actors’’ in the same (‘‘symmetrical’’) sense as human actors. He also allows us to address the question of the role of ‘‘objectivations,’’ which lies at the core of the theory proposed here.'
'Latour emphasizes the idea that society is not only built on human actors but on the relations between varied kinds of actors, including technologies and objects. Actors are linked by networks which can be condensed into black boxes so as to incorporate these actors in a way which he calls ‘‘powerful.’’ Networks of actors seem quite a useful concept since they allow Latour to account for the relevance of things to actions. By relating to networks of actors, Latour also intends to overcome the primacy of the ‘‘local’’ face-to-face interaction. It is at this precise moment that Latour (2005) introduced ‘‘mediation’’ or, to be more exact, ‘‘mediators.’’ Mediators belong to the category of actors who link the ‘local’ and ‘translocal’ or the ‘situational’ and the ‘extrasituational.’ Latour argues that the ‘local’ has no primacy over the ‘translocal’ nor is the face-to-face situation more ‘‘real’’ than situations of mediated interaction. Rather, it is the association of certain objects which allows the production of a certain locality. Thus, mediators are objects which relate specific situations to the global context (such as centers of calculations, stock markets or panoramas). They are the ‘‘means of transportation’’ by which different contexts are brought together.'
'Latour refers directly to the ‘‘panorama’’ (Latour, 2005, p. 300ff). The panorama is a way in which society is produced as something that appears to supersede the situation. Latour rightly observes that panoramas serve to ‘‘frame’’ and ‘‘contextualize’’ what actors do. This view is in common with the empirical research performed on a notable example of a panorama which Suchman (1993) calls a center of coordination.'
'Mediatization combines both, mediation and medialization. In this way, mediatization includes the interpretation of mediators as meanings and messages. From the point of view of communicative action, technologies, be they designed for communication or not, are not just ‘‘instruments’’ interposed into communicative action. Neither can they be accounted for simply by the notion of practice. Instead they require, as we have seen, interpretations, which Pinch (2008) rightly stresses, interpretations which, one has to add, are themselves part of communicative actions.
In summary, mediatization is a general feature of communicative action. It involves meaningful bodies and objects in action. The body figures as the crucial reference point for mediatization, with respect to both experience and active conduct. Mediatization thus refers to the fact that media are not just ‘‘extensions of our sensory apparatus’’ (Meyrowitz, 1994, p. 58) but also extensions of actions. While mediatization is a general feature of communicative action, it is the forms of communication or, as Thompson (1994) prefers, the patterns of communication and interaction which are subject to change. The study of mediatization is, therefore, the study of the changing structure of communicative action.'
'If one asks why mediatization became so important in ‘‘mediatized modernity’’ (Lash in Lundby, 2009), one cannot escape the role of interactivity. Interactivity is most often identified as the exchange of behavioral sequences between human actors and technologies. As clearly as the observation of these sequences focuses on the body, it typically neglects the very forms of communicative action which are performed in these sequences.'
'As the electronic mass media seem to make social spheres ‘‘more permeable’’ (Meyrowitz, 1994, p. 67), the increasingly multimodal interactivity fostered by digital technology is one of the most salient features of mediatization in contemporary society. It results in the transgression of what used to be the ‘‘primacy of the face-to-face situation.’’ This includes several aspects: transgression between the local and the global, transgression of social structure and interaction order and, closer to the discussion of mediatization, the transgression (or dissolution of the distinction between) of immediate and mediated social situations which turn into ‘‘scopic’’ situations. Mediatization, however, does not only mean that the structure of coordinating communicative actions is changing, as the notion of interactivity suggests... contributing to the transformation of the communicative cultures of contemporary society.'
'The fact that communicative action can increasingly be performed in a translocal common environment inherently decreases the relevance of localized social relations and affects what is called community, the public and public communication and even presence that turns or ‘‘liveness’’ (Auslander, 1999; Couldry, 2008b). Some authors argue that mediatization results in the increased importance of objects and, therefore, postsociality. According to Knorr Cetina (2001), for example, postsociality is due to the insertion of objects into the ‘social.’ Also Latour (2005) assumes that sociality must be extended to ‘‘interobjectivity’’ in order to incorporate ‘‘objects’’ as actors in their own right.'
'Sociality can be seen to be enforced or enlarged by mediatization in all its aspects, so as to increase the importance of communicative action.'
'The inclusion of new technologies into communicative action does not only allow for new medialized forms of communicative action, including a massive expansion of visualization and the secondary sensualization of the life world (Krotz, 2001).'
'The current form of mediatization, based on digital technologies of communication, legitimated since the 1960s by a huge range of privately and state financed programs to create the information society, dissolves knowledge (‘‘stored’’ in subjective consciousness) into communicative action and increases the frequency, performance and speed of communicative action to such an extent that one may dare to diagnose a profound transformation into ‘‘a culture of communication for the sake of communication’’ (Castells, 2009, p. 38) in which more and more knowledge is transformed into communicative forms.'
Knoblauch, Hubert. "Communicative constructivism and mediatization." Communication Theory 23.3 (2013): 297-315.
#QuoteAllOfTheThings
'By redefining communicative action as the basic process in the social construction of reality, this approach is built on a convergence of various theoretical strands relevant to the analysis of communication in contemporary society.'
'Before we consider the social order that emerges from sequentiality, one should be aware of an important consequence that arises from conceiving of communicative action as embodied action. Since any such interpretation of action is essentially linked to the body, it defies any distinction between behavior as a ‘‘meaningless’’ performance from a biological body and ‘‘action’’ as an ‘‘intentional’’ act of the bodyless mind. This statement seems daring, yet if we accept that our notion of beauty, gender, or health is socially constructed, the logical consequence is to assume that our body’s performance is meaningful. In this sense one could compare communicative action to what Schatzki (1996) calls ‘‘social practices’’ (including ‘‘doings’’ and ‘‘sayings’’). However, though practice theory considers these practices as ‘‘subconscious,’’ communicative constructivism considers them as a form of knowledge which has to be acquired by, and depends on, activities of subjective consciousness. Thus, if we walk or wander, read letters or play soccer, we may consider all these forms of action to have been acquired by processes of consciousness such as sedimentation, routinization, and habitualization.'
'If one asks why mediatization became so important in ‘‘mediatized modernity’’ (Lash in Lundby, 2009), one cannot escape the role of interactivity. Interactivity is most often identified as the exchange of behavioral sequences between human actors and technologies. As clearly as the observation of these sequences focuses on the body, it typically neglects the very forms of communicative action which are performed in these sequences.'
'A series of authors, particularly involved in the study of communication media, have stressed that technologies of mediation allow us to cross the ‘‘orbits’’ and enter into the face-to-face situation. Thus Thompson (1994), Ho ̈flich (2005) and Krotz (2001) suggest a mixed form of interpersonal mediated interaction which accounts for the massive ‘‘penetration’’ of communication technologies into face- to-face interaction and their ‘‘domestication’’ (Lundby, 2009). Within the sociology of technology, this intersection of social action with technology has been said to cause a differentiation of actions and the creation of a form of social action through technologies called ‘‘interactivity’’ (Rammert, 2012). Probably the most radical reaction to the mediating role of technologies has been formulated by Latour as part of the ‘‘Actor Network Theory.’’ His radicalism is not only due to the fact that he accepts technologies as ‘‘actors’’ in the same (‘‘symmetrical’’) sense as human actors. He also allows us to address the question of the role of ‘‘objectivations,’’ which lies at the core of the theory proposed here.'
'Latour emphasizes the idea that society is not only built on human actors but on the relations between varied kinds of actors, including technologies and objects. Actors are linked by networks which can be condensed into black boxes so as to incorporate these actors in a way which he calls ‘‘powerful.’’ Networks of actors seem quite a useful concept since they allow Latour to account for the relevance of things to actions. By relating to networks of actors, Latour also intends to overcome the primacy of the ‘‘local’’ face-to-face interaction. It is at this precise moment that Latour (2005) introduced ‘‘mediation’’ or, to be more exact, ‘‘mediators.’’ Mediators belong to the category of actors who link the ‘local’ and ‘translocal’ or the ‘situational’ and the ‘extrasituational.’ Latour argues that the ‘local’ has no primacy over the ‘translocal’ nor is the face-to-face situation more ‘‘real’’ than situations of mediated interaction. Rather, it is the association of certain objects which allows the production of a certain locality. Thus, mediators are objects which relate specific situations to the global context (such as centers of calculations, stock markets or panoramas). They are the ‘‘means of transportation’’ by which different contexts are brought together.'
'Latour refers directly to the ‘‘panorama’’ (Latour, 2005, p. 300ff). The panorama is a way in which society is produced as something that appears to supersede the situation. Latour rightly observes that panoramas serve to ‘‘frame’’ and ‘‘contextualize’’ what actors do. This view is in common with the empirical research performed on a notable example of a panorama which Suchman (1993) calls a center of coordination.'
'Mediatization combines both, mediation and medialization. In this way, mediatization includes the interpretation of mediators as meanings and messages. From the point of view of communicative action, technologies, be they designed for communication or not, are not just ‘‘instruments’’ interposed into communicative action. Neither can they be accounted for simply by the notion of practice. Instead they require, as we have seen, interpretations, which Pinch (2008) rightly stresses, interpretations which, one has to add, are themselves part of communicative actions.
In summary, mediatization is a general feature of communicative action. It involves meaningful bodies and objects in action. The body figures as the crucial reference point for mediatization, with respect to both experience and active conduct. Mediatization thus refers to the fact that media are not just ‘‘extensions of our sensory apparatus’’ (Meyrowitz, 1994, p. 58) but also extensions of actions. While mediatization is a general feature of communicative action, it is the forms of communication or, as Thompson (1994) prefers, the patterns of communication and interaction which are subject to change. The study of mediatization is, therefore, the study of the changing structure of communicative action.'
'If one asks why mediatization became so important in ‘‘mediatized modernity’’ (Lash in Lundby, 2009), one cannot escape the role of interactivity. Interactivity is most often identified as the exchange of behavioral sequences between human actors and technologies. As clearly as the observation of these sequences focuses on the body, it typically neglects the very forms of communicative action which are performed in these sequences.'
'As the electronic mass media seem to make social spheres ‘‘more permeable’’ (Meyrowitz, 1994, p. 67), the increasingly multimodal interactivity fostered by digital technology is one of the most salient features of mediatization in contemporary society. It results in the transgression of what used to be the ‘‘primacy of the face-to-face situation.’’ This includes several aspects: transgression between the local and the global, transgression of social structure and interaction order and, closer to the discussion of mediatization, the transgression (or dissolution of the distinction between) of immediate and mediated social situations which turn into ‘‘scopic’’ situations. Mediatization, however, does not only mean that the structure of coordinating communicative actions is changing, as the notion of interactivity suggests... contributing to the transformation of the communicative cultures of contemporary society.'
'The fact that communicative action can increasingly be performed in a translocal common environment inherently decreases the relevance of localized social relations and affects what is called community, the public and public communication and even presence that turns or ‘‘liveness’’ (Auslander, 1999; Couldry, 2008b). Some authors argue that mediatization results in the increased importance of objects and, therefore, postsociality. According to Knorr Cetina (2001), for example, postsociality is due to the insertion of objects into the ‘social.’ Also Latour (2005) assumes that sociality must be extended to ‘‘interobjectivity’’ in order to incorporate ‘‘objects’’ as actors in their own right.'
'Sociality can be seen to be enforced or enlarged by mediatization in all its aspects, so as to increase the importance of communicative action.'
'The inclusion of new technologies into communicative action does not only allow for new medialized forms of communicative action, including a massive expansion of visualization and the secondary sensualization of the life world (Krotz, 2001).'
'The current form of mediatization, based on digital technologies of communication, legitimated since the 1960s by a huge range of privately and state financed programs to create the information society, dissolves knowledge (‘‘stored’’ in subjective consciousness) into communicative action and increases the frequency, performance and speed of communicative action to such an extent that one may dare to diagnose a profound transformation into ‘‘a culture of communication for the sake of communication’’ (Castells, 2009, p. 38) in which more and more knowledge is transformed into communicative forms.'
Knoblauch, Hubert. "Communicative constructivism and mediatization." Communication Theory 23.3 (2013): 297-315.
#QuoteAllOfTheThings
No comments:
Post a Comment