Communicative Figurations An Introduction

The media communication which takes place in a specific public or social context is termed as communicative figurations. Global media communication is essential to life in the modern world. Work, leisure, socialization, the political public sphere, public engagement, etc., are all articulated through different types of mediated communication. Media has gained significance in all social and cultural domains. The highly mediatized culture and society is accentuated by the spread of various technical communication media such as mobile phones and internet platforms. Various domains of the social world are closely related to media and could not exist in their present form beyond it. This book explores all the important aspects of communicative figurations in the present day scenario. Most of the topics introduced herein cover new techniques and the applications of this field. This book on communicative figurations is a collective contribution of a renowned group of international experts.

This open access volume assesses the influence of our changing media environment. Today, there is not one single medium that is the driving force of change. With the spread of various technical communication media such as mobile phones and internet platforms, we are confronted with a media manifold of deep mediatization. But how can we investigate its transformative capability? This book answers this question by taking a non-media-centric perspective, researching the various figurations of collectivities and organizations humans are involved in. The first part of the book outlines a fundamental understanding of the changing media environment of deep mediatization and its transformative capacity. The second part focuses on collectivities and movements: communities in the city, critical social movements, maker, online gaming groups and networked groups of young people. The third part moves institutions and organizations into the foreground, discussing the transformation of journalism, religion, politics, and education, whilst the fourth and final part is dedicated to methodologies and perspectives.

This handbook on Mediatization of Communication uncovers the interrelation between media changes and changes in culture and society. This is essential to understand contemporary trends and transformations. “Mediatization” characterizes changes in practices, cultures and institutions in media-saturated societies, thus denoting transformations of these societies themselves. This volume offers 31 contributions by leading media and communication scholars from the humanities and social sciences, with different approaches to mediatization of communication. The chapters span from how mediatization meets climate change and contribute to globalization to questions on life and death in mediatized settings. The book deals with mass media as well as communication with networked, digital media. The topic of this volume makes a valuable contribution to the understanding of contemporary processes of social, cultural and political changes. The handbook provides the reader with the most current state of mediatization research.

Andreas Hepp takes an integrative look at one of the biggest questions in media and communications research: how digital media is changing society. Often, such questions are discussed in isolation, losing sight of the overarching context in which they are situated. Hepp has developed a theory of the re-figuration of society by digital media and their infrastructures, and provides an understanding of how profound today’s media-related changes are, not only for institutions, organizations and communities, but for the individual as well. Rooted in the latest research, this book does not stop at a description of media-related change; instead, it raises the normative challenge of what deep mediatization should look like so that it might just stimulate a 'good life' for all. Providing original and critical research, the book introduces deep mediatization to students of media and cultural studies, as well as neighboring disciplines like sociology, political science and other cognate disciplines.

Models of Communication offers a timely reassessment of the significance of modelling in media and communication studies. From a rich variety of different perspectives, the collected essays explore the past, present, and future uses of communication models, in ordinary discourses concerning communication as well as in academic research. This book challenges received views of communication models and opens up new paths of inquiry for communication research. By zooming in on the manifestations and purposes of modelling in ordinary discourses on communication as well as in theoretical expositions, the essays collected in this volume cast new light on the problems and prospects of models crafted for the benefit of communication inquiry. Complementing earlier studies of models of communication, the volume digs deep into fundamental epistemological and ontological questions concerning modelling in the communication disciplines; but it also presents several novel models that promise to be of practical use in empirical studies of media and communication. The book is intended for communication scholars and students of media and will also be of interest for related disciplines in the humanities and the social sciences.

This book demonstrates how media technologies shape amateur sports and how some of these sports are modified. The author uses an innovative measuring approach to analyze how people use media technologies in conjunction with sports and how their relationship with physical activity is affected by the ever-present influence of the media. The research used includes a meta-theoretical analysis of the current mediatization theory, as well as quantitative and qualitative empirical research. The author integrates these aspects into the new concept of media saturation, supplementing the current theory and contributing to the wider body of knowledge in the field of media and physical activity. The book analyzes different perspectives in an interdisciplinary examination, ranging from media and sport researchers to scholars in culture studies, sociology, and psychology.

How does the media influence our everyday lives? In which ways do our social worlds change when they interact with media? And what are the consequences for theorizing media and communication? Starting with questions like these, Mediatized Worlds discusses the transformation of our lives by their increasing mediatization. The chapters cover topics such as rethinking mediatization, mediatized communities, the mediatization of private lives and of organizational contexts, and the future perspective for mediatization research. The empirical studies offer new access to questions of mediatization an access that grounds mediatization in life-world and social-world perspectives.

This handbook on Mediatization of Communication uncovers the interrelation between media changes and changes in culture and society. This is essential to understand contemporary trends and transformations. “Mediatization” characterizes changes in practices, cultures and institutions in media-saturated societies, thus denoting transformations of these societies themselves. This volume offers 31 contributions by leading media and communication scholars from the humanities and social sciences, with different approaches to mediatization of communication. The chapters span from how mediatization meets climate change and contribute to globalization to questions on life and death in mediatized settings. The book deals with mass media as well as communication with networked, digital media. The topic of this volume makes a valuable contribution to the understanding of contemporary processes of social, cultural and political changes. The handbook provides the reader with the most current state of mediatization research.