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Friday, November 11
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MED04 Media Sociology in the Age of DeepMediatization
A. Hepp
1
1
University of Bremen, ZeMKI, Bremen, Germany
From the beginning of modernity media have played a role in the formation of the social world: from the mid 19
th
to the late 20
th
century, modern media
institutions (newspapers, radio, film, television) appeared to provide a common social focus through mass content dissemination within territories bound‑
ed generally by the containers of the nation-state (Thompson 1995). Researching the interdependency of ‘mass media’ and the culture and society was
a first focus of mediatization research and many early definitions of mediatization started from this point of view (Hjarvard 2013; Lundby 2014; Schulz
2004). However, mediatization is progressing: With digitalization and datafication as the most recent waves of mediatization, media operate in multiple
modalities and directions, and through inputs from every point in social space (Couldry/Hepp 2013; Finnemann 2014; Lunt/Livingstone 2016). The social
world and how we construct it is much ‘deeper’ interwoven with media than in times of ‘mass media’. Form such a point of view it seems to be appropriate
to understand our present time as such of a ‘deep mediatization’. But how can we grasp this deepness of mediatization from an analytical point of view?
How should we think today about the status of ‘media’ in the formation of the social world? And what new versions of media sociology are needed to ad‑
dress such questions? This panel brings together five sharply contrasting perspectives. First, Gina Neff will discuss how the new data infrastructure enables
new forms of social cooperation, agency and order far beyond our standard model of media institutions. Second, Peter Lunt will theorise the new forms
of emotional flow made possible by today’s intensified media environment. The other three papers will emphasise possible points of rethinking classic
media sociology. Maria Bakardjieva, Stina Bengtsson and Göran Bolin discuss the ‘variable depths of mediatisation’in a media sociological perspective that
moves the different media landscapes into the foreground. Silvio Waisboard argues for a more normative sociology of communication and difference that
critically reflects the present waves of mediatization. Nick Couldry and Andreas Hepp will attempt to revive the best from the phenomenological thinking,
but in a way that fully reflects the materiality of digital infrastructures as a main feature of ‘deep mediatization’. By bringing together these perspectives
the panel will demonstrate that in an age of‘deep mediatization’the social world is not something‘flat’, but rather remains intensely contestable at multiple
levels.We must avoid confusing the algorithmic complexity of today’s data-driven figurations with the idea that our social world itself is‘nothing more’than
assemblages or networks of individuals.To understand‘the social’, it is not enough to follow the links between actors, as actor network theory (Latour 2007)
or network society theory (Castells 2009) sometimes suggest. Such ideas, however provocative remain too reductionist to offer a proper basis for a critical
analysis. We need instead a renewed media sociology that can address the changing forms of media technologies, and how, on their basis, we make sense
of the social world.
PN 204
The Mediatization of Public Life: The Sociology of Emotions and Affect Theory
P. Lunt
1
1
University of Leicester, Leicester, United Kingdom
This paper engages with the mediatization of public life by exploring the parallel emergence of reflections on the sociology of emotions (Turner, 2009 on
‘the Sociology of Emotions’) and of Affect Theory (Clough, 2008 ‘The Affective Turn’) and some recent work that attempts to bridge these (ePapacharissi
2015, ‘Affective Publics’) in the frame of media sociology. The sociology of the emotions is often discussed as a field that has emerged in the last 30 years
or so as part of a more general recognition that theories across the social sciences had neglected the emotions by putting the focus on macro social forces
and structures and strategic action. Even the traditions of microsociology (Goffman 1959, ‘The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life’) can be criticised for
neglecting emotional dimensions of identity and everyday life. In cultural theory, following William’s conception of the ‘structure of feeling’ reinterpreted
through a Deleuzian frame, there is a flowering of attempts to theorize seemingly evanescent, powerful micro-experiences. These new developments
challenge our conception of public life as primarily a process of the use of deliberation to form publics or publics as aggregates of opinions and values which
has traditionally neglected emotions and affect yet formulates ways of understanding engagement in public life. Papacharissi offers us an attempt to bridge
these traditions by taking insights from Affect Theory to rethink publics formed in the contemporary media environment. The paper contextualizes affective
publics in the context of Boltanksi and Chiapello’ (2005) ‘New Spirit of Capitalism’ linking the affective enrolment and construction of digital networked
publics to critique. The implications for the separation historical accounts in mediatization theory and the application of the concept of ‘deep mediatization’
to the analysis of contemporary mediated transformations of public life are explored in the light of these arguments about the sociology of the emotions
and affect theory.
PN 205
Media Sociology, Connectivity and the Variable Depths of Mediatisation
M. Bakardjieva
1
, S. Bengtsson
2
, G. Bolin
2
1
University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada
2
Södertörn University, Stockholm, Sweden
This paper aims to conceptualize the ways in which citizens perceive of and orient to the public world in a media landscape of intersecting media tech‑
nologies and affordances, thus developing and linking the concepts of civic connection and participation with mediatisation. We use the concept of me‑
diatisation to refer not only to the extent to which communication media are integrated in society and culture, but also to investigate the changes this
integration brings about in how the social world is phenomenologically experienced by those who live in these societies. It is our belief that a comparative
research approach offers an effective way to capture and deepen the understanding of the different dimensions of mediatisation.The comparative approach
illuminates how various degrees of access and use of media technologies in different social and cultural contexts are linked to citizens’experiences of civic
connection, engagement, and their own position in society. Drawing on empirical results from a representative survey focused on Internet/digital media
use for civic and political participation, building civic connections and collective identities in Bulgaria and Estonia, the paper aims to conceptualize the ways