ECREA16-Abstract

210

Thursday, November 10

1 4 : 3 0 – 1 6 : 0 0

DCC05

Dissolution or Separation?Managing Boundaries in/through/withMedia

M. Hartmann

University of the Arts- Berlin, Berlin, Germany

This panel aims to further theorize and empirically engage with the question of boundaries in (mediatized) communication. There are three underlying

assumptions that this panel starts from (seemingly banal, but nonetheless important): a) that (communicative) boundaries exist and that these are crucial

for the emergence and further existence of the social; b) that many of these dynamic boundary constructions have shifted in diverse directions (partly due

to the increasing reliance on mediated communication; partly due to increasing mobilities); c) that these shifts do not necessarily connote a disappearance.

The focus is to systematically enhance an elaborated theory with empirical findings related to forms of usage and adoption and to thereby conclude with

an expansion of the theory. The reason for boundaries having become a major research focus in recent years, lies in developments such as globalisation

and increasing mobilities, as e.g. migration or travel. Former borders and boundaries are blurring and even dissolving. These observations are currently

discussed with different labels: transgression, hybridity or convergence. The media forms involved are similarly labelled as seamless media, platforms or

transnational/-cultural media. And this seemingly widespread dissolution is reacted towards: either on the judgemental level, problematizing the shift in

the social or in terms of a focus on the solutions, i.e. management strategies (not only in the psychological sense). The strategies that we find in different

quotidian practices often show biographical and situational reasoning. They also show that dissolution is by far not the only tendency that a) can be

found and b) is desired. The panel will therefore show both tendencies – for blurring / eroding / removal on the one hand and for building / upholding

/ renewing boundaries on the other hand. To discuss the emergence and dissolution of boundaries in/around/with media as well as the related question

of management of these, the panel approaches the topic from diverse angles: the spatial, the temporal and the routine, addressing‘always on’assumptions,

polychrome use patterns, intense job-mobilities, communicative networking. It uses communicative mobilities, ritual interaction chains, non-media centric

approaches and more to frame the studies.

PN 105

From Linear Consumption to Spontaneous Access: Social Acceleration and Media Use

E. Prommer

, S.O. Görland

University of Rostock, Rostock, Germany

The development of digital media and especially mobile media influences howwe experience temporality.While media was formerly characterized through

its primarily linear structure, things have changed: now we can be spontaneous reached anytime and anyplace, we keep permanent connection to our

environment. With this dismantling of former time structures critical concerns have appeared: some scholars hold the opinion that by being permanently

online, permanently connected (Vorderer & Kohring, 2013) we kill our free time voluntary with the consequence that situations in which we slow down

become rare (Turkle, 2008). Due to this, the heavy use of information and communication technologies become a reason for social acceleration (Rosa, 2013):

ICT accelerates the increasing shortage of time. For example it is assumed, that in 20

century the signaling speed of ICT increased by a factor of 107. In last

consequence of this the average person feels more stressed instead of less. Paradoxically although digital media help us reduce time and space, it also tends

to stress us (Perlow, 2012; Gergen, 2002). The presented study analyzes time-based media use in mobility situations like traveling in train or waiting with

the aim to identify processes of social acceleration and how they blur our perception of time. Based on a combined qualitative and quantitative design this

research proves polychrome and blended phenomena of social acceleration and new patterns of time use through mobile media. Besides the media use in

these situations being primarily spontaneous and ritualized, especially multitasking, the switching between several media services at the same time and

compression – i.e. the ever tighter frequency of media usage cases – are being studied. The recipients develop a permanent feeling of pressure for atten‑

tion with the consequence that time is getting timeless (Castells, 1997). References: Castells, Manuel (1997): The Information Age: Economy, Society and

Culture, Vol. II. The Power of Identity. Oxford: Blackwell. Gergen, Kenneth (2002). Cell phone technology and the realm of absent presence. In Katz, James

E., and Aakhus, Mark (Eds.), Perpetual contact. NewYork: Cambridge University Press, 227–241. Perlow, L. A. (2012). Sleeping with your smartphones: how

to break the 24/7 habit and change the way you work. Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business Review Press. Rosa, Hartmut (2013): Social Acceleration: A New

Theory of Modernity. NewYork: Columbia University Press. Turkle, S. (2008). Always-on/Always-on-you: The Tethered Self. In J. E. Katz, Handbook of mobile

communication studies (pp. 227–241). Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Vorderer, Peter/Kohring, Matthias (2013): Permanently online: A challenge for media

and communication research. In: International Journal of Communication 7(2013), 188–196.

PN 106

Applying the Non-Media-Centric Approach to the Question of Mobility

M. Hartmann

University of the Arts, Berlin, Germany

In a reflexive mode concerning the other three presentations (or rather the basic assumptions underlying some of their arguments), this contribution

aims at a using the non-media-centric approach and relate it to the question of mobilities and the study of mobile or rather convergent media use. It will

begin with the question how wide a non-media-centric approach (e.g. Morley, 2009) does need to be in order to actually avoid the media-centrism and at

the same time not to become obsolete. This will further be elaborated in relation to the concept of mobilities (as used in paper 1 and 2 – see also Sheller &

Urry, 2006) as well as routines (as presented in paper 3). This theoretical contribution will lastly focus on the question of boundaries and analyse in detail

the boundary concept(s) implied in the different approaches. Boundaries are here referring to the empirical object looked at, but they are also an important

aspect of the epistemological question underlying research approaches such as the non-media-centric or mobilities approach. Last, but not least, this

contribution is meant to draw some aspects of the other papers together in order to build the basis for the respondents’response. References Morley, David.

“For a Materialist, Non-Media-centric Media Studies.”Television & NewMedia. 10, no. 1 (2009): 114–116. Sheller, Mimi, and John Urry.“The NewMobilities

Paradigm.”Environment and Planning A 38, no. 2 (2006): 207–26. doi:10.1068/a37268.