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MED06 Audiences, Users and Practices: Perspectives on Agency and Interaction inMediatization Theory
PP 549
Where Are Audiences in Mediatization Research?
K. Lundby
1
1
University of Oslo, Department of Media and Communication, Oslo, Norway
Mediatization research concentrates on conditions for media-induced transformations and thus leans towards the production side of mediated communi‑
cation chains. This paper searches the audience in mediatization research. Audience studies are changing as the media landscape is being transformed. No
surprise, then, that the European research programme on‘Transforming Audiences, Transforming Societies’(COST 2010–2014) observes mediatization. This
is visible in the two key publications, Audience Transformations (2014) and Revitalizing Audience Research (2015), although mediatization does not make
a dominant perspective. This may partly be due to the observation made in these publications, that so far there has been little sustained effort to situate
the role of audiences within the processes of mediatization. To substantiate the claim that mediatization research has a more or less blind eye to the role
of audiences, this paper looks at key books on mediatization. In Knut Lundby (ed.) Mediatization: Concept, Changes, Consequences (2009) the entries
are about conceptual tools to grasp overall social and cultural change. The exception is Stig Hjarvard’s chapter on how mediatization makes its marks on
the habitus of individuals. However, the argument works from‘above’. This chapter is reprinted in Hjarvard’s The Mediatization of Culture and Society (2013)
which, again, focus the mediatized conditions for audience activity. Andreas Hepp, Cultures of Mediatization (2013) has no index entries on audiences
at all despite the social-constructivist approach. However, in the volume Hepp has edited with Friedrich Krotz (2014) on specific, networked Mediatized
Worlds there are two chapters exploring audience perspectives. The handbook on Mediatization of Communication edited by Knut Lundby (2014) brings 31
chapters on various aspects of mediatization. A detailed check discloses that most of the chapters just touch on audiences in passing. Some eight chapters
refer to audiences more extensively. However, most of them apply a more traditional understanding of audiences from studies of mass communication.
Audience co-construction in processes of mediatization is to a limited extent included. The approach from the research on ‘Transforming Audiences, Trans‑
forming Societies’ is barely visible in the handbook. This will be explicated in the paper, which further discusses ways to integrate audience perspectives
in mediatization research. Kim Schrøder did an attempt at the former ECREA conference, going ‘Towards the “audiencization”of mediatization?’(2014). He
wants to enrich the understanding of“how societies are being transformed through the complex workings of the media/audience nexus.”TamaraWitschge
(2014) indicates the role of audiences in the mediatization of politics. ‘Audiences’ are collectivities in contrast to individual ‘users’. Audiences may act as to
participate in, or to constitute a public, as pointed out by Sonia Livingstone in the volume on Audiences and Publics (2005) from the research programme
on ‘Changing Media, Changing Europe’. Audiences act and interact and thus take part in the shaping of mediatization processes. Integration of audiences
into mediatization research may be sought through people’s interpretations and interactions in communication dynamics. This may include discontinuities
as asked for in the general call to ECC2016. The paper will bring examples from an ongoing research project.
PP 550
Preserving the Classic Media Experience for Communitization Today – Negotiating (Dis)Continuities in the Retrogaming Community
‘Project 1999’
J. Hörtnagl
1
1
Universität Augsburg, Institut für Medien- Wissen und Kommunikation, Augsburg, Germany
This presentation explores the preservation of the social architecture as a key category of communitization in the retrogaming-community ‘Project 1999’.
The examined group can be understood as a‘mediatisation community’(Hepp/Berg/Roitsch 2014: 56) in the sense that media-use is a constitutive element
for this community that formed in and around a virtual space of mediatized communication. The community invokes certain features of a particular ‘classic’
phase of the computer game ‘Everquest’as a symbolic resource in a collaborative effort to recreate a specific gaming experience. The social architecture can
be conceptualized as a shared notion regarding the interrelation between game features and social interaction, and therefor as a basis for communitization.
Based on the Situational Analysis approach (Clarke 2005) and drawing from data of twelve semi-structured interviews and several months of participant
observation of in-game interaction this paper empirically retraces the social processes of negotiation of the‘classic experience’in the context of a newmedia
landscape. The attempt at recreating a certain gaming experience reflects closely on the interrelation between the technical condition of and the social
interaction within the game. Technology was a limiting factor in different ways when Everquest first was released in 1999. Communication was largely
restricted to the game world which only provided certain channels and modes of interaction between players, a situation that is vastly different from
todays’ubiquitous interconnectedness.Technological and social change forces the members of the community to negotiate what they believe is the essence
of the gaming experience and adapt it to the contemporary media landscape.The result is a complex and often contradictory community whose participants
put in considerable effort to maintain the desired condition of constructed stability. Developers recreate the game on the technical level through emulation
and provide the infrastructure necessary for the game world, to prevent abuse of certain game features they also regulate practices made possible with
new media products. Players themselves encounter these challenges by consciously adapting and abdicating certain media and bits of information into
their practices. Together, the members of the community formulate scripts of“best behavior”that guide player interaction and in-game collaboration. Like
a mantra, the phrase“it’s classic”is used to legitimate measures that could otherwise be interpreted as restrictive or intrusive to a players individual agency.
On the one hand, the notions that are derived from a shared memory are used to demarcate the community’s specific properties inwards and thus align
actions within and around the emulator in the spirit of tradition. The so established continuity fosters a sense of belonging and community. On the other
hand, they are also used to reflect upon wider notions of gaming and game design, e.g. when Everquest and its unique attributes are compared to other
games. The emulator can thus be seen as a platform that is used to negotiate technological and social discontinuities in contemporary gaming culture and
beyond. Clarke, Adele (2005): Situational Analysis. Thousand Oaks: SAGE. Hepp, Andreas/ Berg, Matthias/ Roitsch, Cindy (2014): Mediatisierte Welten der
Vergemeinschaftung. Wiesbaden: VS.