John Thompson: The media and modernity. A social theory of the media

1. Communication and social contextCommunication media Social + technical dimensions.

Always a contextualised social phenomenon: embedded in social contexts, with structuring impact on communication

Austin: speech act theory Communication as a form of action. But Austin does not contextualise communication and speech acts.

Here: Social phenomena as purposive actions carried out in structured social contexts. Within ‘fields of interaction’ (> Bourdieu).> Power

Uses of communication media

Communication: a distinctive kind of social activity: production, transmission and reception of symbolic forms. Involves the implementation of technical meida; the material substratum of symbolic forms.

General aspect and attributes of communication media

1. Degree of fixation of the symbolic form > storing capacity

2. > Allows for reproduction3. Space-time distanciation4. Encoding and decoding skills

Characteristics of ‘mass communication’

First on the problematic aspects with the term mass communication/mass media. However to refer to “the institutionalized production and generalized diffusion of symbolic goods via the fixation and transmission of information or symbolic content”. Not unique to mass communication, but set of features typical and important.

1. Technical and institutional means of production and diffusion

2. Commodification of symbolic forms3. Structured break between production and reception of

symbolic forms4. Extends the availability of symbolic forms in space and

time5. The public circulation of symbolic forms. Products

available to a plurality of recipients. The reordering of space and time

Despatialized simultaneity: simultaneity does not necessarily presupposed locality.

how individuals experience spatial and temporal aspects of life, > Meyorwitz: no sense of place.

How individuals experience the past and and the world beyond their immediate milieu. Mediated historicity and worldliness.

People’s sense of belonging. Mediated sociality.Communication, appropriation and everyday life

1. Structuralism, semiotics and co.2. Earlier empirical traditions of media research3. Later various approaches using a variety of methods.

Reception as routine Routine and practical activity. Situated activity: located in specific social-historical contexts. Integral part of everyday life.

Skilled accomplishment Extremely diverse, but generally based on learning. May be socially differentiated.

Hermeneutic process Process of interpretations. Gadamer: not a presuppositionless

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activity, but an active, creative process. > Meaning According to individual interpretations. Complex, shifting

phenomenon. Also part of reflection, and self-reflection. Self-formation and self-understanding. Constructing a sense of self.

3. The rise of mediated interactionDevelopment of communication media

> affecting patterns of social interaction. Not simply new networks of relationships transmissions, but creates new forms of action and interaction. Separated from physical locale.

Three types of interaction Face-to-face; mediated; mediated quasi-interactionFace-to-face Context of co-presence. Consequences for type of interaction.

Saturated with multiplicity of symbolic cues.Mediated interaction Letter writing and telephone conversations. And obviously a lot

more today than Thompson mentions. Involves the use of a technical medium, narrowing of symbolic cues. Individuals more dependent on their own interpretations and contexts.

Mediated quasi-interaction Social relations established by mass media. Produced for an indefinite range of potential recipients. Monological interaction. Thompson emphesises that these situations blur, but it must be said that these crude typification is even more problematic than before, that is, mostly relations between mediated and mediated quasi-interaction > paper on conceptualising personal media. Thompson, however, does take precautions, such as further development of new communication technologies. My point is still valid, Thompson’s typification might be too crude.

Rise of mediated interaction

Not necessarily at the expense of face-to-face interaction. But modern social life increasingly made up of forms of interaction, which are not f2f. “The interactoin mix of social life has changed” (: 87).

The social organization of mediated quasi-interaction

References to Erving Goffman’s presentation of self: front and back regions. Individuals constantly adapting behaviour to shifting boundaries.

Communication media Profound impact on nature of front and back regions and relations between them.

Technically mediated quasi-interaction

Symbolic forms produced in one context, and received in multiplicity of other contexts.

Three sets of space-time coordinates

1. space-time coordinates of the context of production2. of the televisual message itself3. of the diverse contexts of reception

Space-time interpolation: continuous process of splicing together these three sets of coordinates. Example: viewing television: recipients splicing togheter the different sets of space-time coordinates.

Monological character Structural asymmetry between producers and receivers. No reflexive monitoring of the other’s responses. Recepients at liberty not to pay attention. Quasi-participation.

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The established social relationships

‘Tele-visibility’, combines audio-visual presence with spatio-temporal distance. Personalities whose traits are defined largely within the front-region of the production sphere. Recipients, anonymous and invisible spectators of performace. Nevertheless crucial for producers.

Action at a distance (1): Acting for distant others

1. Recipient address: direct and indirect2. Mediated everyday activity3. Media events4. Fictionalized action

(2): Responsive action in distant contexts

Discursive elaboration: the responsive actions are not part of the quasi-intreraction as such, but refined and commented in the context of the recipients.

Extended mediazation Media messages are re-mediated, self-referentiality. Appropriation of the media messages. According to social attributes of the audience, varies.

Concerted forms of responsive action

1. Concerted but uncoordinated responsive action2. Explicitly intended coordinated recipient response

(laughter boxes)3. Organized or coordinated responsive action (anti-war

movements, Eastern Europe 1989),New social and political field

Media not simply reporting from the world – actively involved in constituting the social and political world. Shape the course of events.

More complicated patterns New kind of field: f2f interaction, mediated interaction, mediated quasi-interaction intersecting in complex ways. > Contributes in the complexity and unpredictability of the modern world.

7. Self and experience in a mediated worldModernity Reflexive and open-ended self-formation. Non-local

knowledge. The capacity of experience disconnected from the activity of encountering. How related mediated experiences to the practical contexts of our day-to-day lives?

The self as a symbolic project

Thompson claims to represent an account of the self fundamentally different from that of structural linguistics etc, such as Althusser and Foucault’s: techniques of the self: “the ways in which individuals are turned into subjects whi think and act in accordance with the possibilities that are laid out in advance”. However, is Thompson’s perspective very different from that of Foucault?

A hermeneutics-inspired perspective

The self as a symbolic project that the individual actively constructs. A narrative of self-identity. Unofficial biographers of ourself (the link to Foucault here seems evident?).

Communication media > The importance of the development of communication media: the process of self-formation dependent on acvcess to mediated forms of communication.Enriches and accenturates the reflexive organization of the self. Coherent and continuosly revised biographical narrative.

Negative consequences 1. The mediated intrusion of ideological messages into the practical contexts of everyday life. Thompson’s accont of ideology; the ways in which symbolic forms serve to establish and sustain relations of domination. The role of the media in such ideological processes. How these

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messages are incorporated into the lives of the recipients.

2. The double-bind of mediated dependency: “It renders this reflexive organization increasingly dependent on systems over which the individual has relatively little control. Part of the whole modern societies thing. See also Ulrich Beck: individualization and institutionalization.

3. The disorienting effect of symbolic overload: the confrontation of countless narratives of self-formation and visions of world. Necessitates a selective approach. The importance of significant others (Katz & Lazarsfel, Radway). The interplay of complexity and expertise.

4. The absorption of self in mediated quasi-interaction: individuals relying too heavily on mediated symbolic materials.

Non-reciprocal intimacy at a distance

> opportunity to explore interpersonal relationships in a vicarious way. Extensive on fan-culture.

Desequestration and the mediation of experience

Complex reordering of spheres of experience. Institutional sequestration of experience co-developing with the massive expansion of mediated forms of experience. Also makes available new forms of experiences.

Hermeneutics and phenomenological trad.

Following Dilthey. Distinction between two types of experience:

1. Lived experience (Erlebnis): situated, ‘real-life’ experiences. Not mediated through technical media.

2. Mediated experience: acquired through mediated interaction and mediated quasi-interaction

Mediated quasi-interaction 1. Mediated experiences are distant spatially. Unlikely to impinge directly on the recipient’s lives.

2. Takes place in a context which is different from the context in which the event actually occurs. Recontextualised experience.

3. Relevance structure. Mediated experiences as a discontinous sequence of experiences with varying degrees of relevance to the self.

4. Despatialized communality. No longer linked to a sharing of a common locale.

New options, new burdens: living in a mediated world

Thompson claims to present a view of the self that differs from that of much postmodern theory (the dissolved self). Still transformed conditions of self-formation. The self: reflexively organized symbolic project, increasingly unconstrained by location in context of day-to-day life. The self as opened up by media messages. Living as a continuous interweaving of different forms of experience. New opportunities, options, arenas for self-experimenting.

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