The Mediatisation of Society - Stig Hjarvard
Mediatisation is a double-sided process of high modernity.
- The media emerges as an independent institution with a logic of its own that other social
institutions have to accommodate.
- Media simultaneously become an integrated part of other institutions like politics, work, family,
and religion as more and more of these institutional activities are performed through both
interactive and mass media.
What are the consequences of the gradual and increasing adaptation of central societal institutions, and
the culture in which we live to the presence of intervening media?
Media Logic: Formatting logic that determines how the material is categorised, the choice of presentation
mode, and the selection and portrayal of social experience in the media.
- Robert Snow
- David Altheide
4 Ways media changes human communication and interaction: (Winfried Schulz)
1) Extend human communication ability (space and time)
2) Substitute social activities (used to be face-to-face)
3) Amalgamation media infiltrates into everyday life
4) Accommodate media’s valuations, formats and routines
Globalisation and media:
- Globalisation presumes the existence of technical means to extend communication and interaction
over long distances
- Propels the process of mediatization by institutionalising mediated communication and interaction
in many new contexts.
Baudrillard’s Hyperreality Theory:
- the postmodern condition where it is difficult or impossible to distinguish between reality and
representations of reality.
- Hyperreality is replacing reality
Mediation: Communication via a medium
Direct-Mediatisation (strong): Formerly non-mediated activity converts to a mediated form.
Indirect-Mediatisation (weak): Given activity is increasingly influenced with respect to form, content, or
organisation by mediagenic symbols or mechanisms.
,Allocation of resources:
- Material Resources: raw materials, buildings, knowledge, manpower and facilities
- Authority: who may speak on behalf of the institute?
Social Interaction: The parties assume social roles that confer different degrees of latitude with regard to
personal expression and influence over the course of the interaction or its outcome.
Ervig Goffman’s Dramaturgical Approach: The investigation of social interaction in terms borrowed from
theatrical performance.
- A person is both an actor and an audience.
- Presentation of self or impression management: an individual’s effort to create specific
impressions in the minds of others. Each individual's performance.
3 functions of the media on a macro level:
1) Media constitutes an interface in the relations within and between institutions
E.g. firms advertise to communicate with potential customers
2) Media constitutes a real of shared experiences
E.g. Through continuous presentation/interpretation of ‘the way things are’, a sense of identity and
community is formed
3) Media helps create a political public sphere
E.g. institutions can pursue and defend their own interests and establish their legitimacy
Mediatisation is a modernisation process on par with industrialisation and urbanisation.
The creation of a common experiential frame of reference is not just a matter of adding something new
and shared; it is also a matter of eroding and doing away with previous experience and culture.
Metacapital: the ability of a state to project its power across different fields
Virtualisation: individuals can take part in and partake of many different social institutions, irrespective of
their physical location.
- Most institutions still maintain physical-geographical bases as an important framework for social
praxis.
Week 1: Lecture Notes
Mediatised Health:
- health as an individual issue
- The changing role of experts
- Health as one’s lifestyle
- Quantification of the self
, Mediatisation Theory: The duality of media as an independent institution and as intertwined with other
institutions. It investigates the complex relations between media and other institutions.
- Non-normative theory
- Media has become an integrated part of social institutions
- Media has grown into an (independent) social institution
Media as ‘commons’: all institutions are using media
Field Theory: Pierre Bourdieu
- macro and micro fields
- individuals who are vying for power within the social fields
- rules of the game
- doxes: rules of the game (written and unwritten)
- Autonomous poles: field acting to its own logic
- Heteronomous poles: fields act under the influence of other fields
Structuration Theory: Anthony Giddens
- interaction between agents and structures
- Agents can change the structure
- Structures are formed by agents, rules and resources
Cosmopolitanised Nations: Re-imagining Collectivity in World Risk Society - Ulrich Beck
Methodological nationalism: the need to develop an analytical idiom of ‘modern society’ that is not
limited to a national ontology and that is suggestive of alternative modes of belonging.
Cosmopolitanisation itself is a constitutive feature of the reconfiguration of nationhood.
Cosmopolitan nations are reimagined through the anticipation of endangered futures.
- possibly generated through shared encounters with risk.
Nationalism: the presupposition that the national territory remains the key principle and yardstick for the
study of social, economic, political and cultural processes
Cosmopolitanism and Risk Society
- Risk Society: modern society is increasingly preoccupied with debating, preventing, and managing
risks
- In a global world, risks are hard to forecast
- Global media events produce shared exposure
Mediatisation is a double-sided process of high modernity.
- The media emerges as an independent institution with a logic of its own that other social
institutions have to accommodate.
- Media simultaneously become an integrated part of other institutions like politics, work, family,
and religion as more and more of these institutional activities are performed through both
interactive and mass media.
What are the consequences of the gradual and increasing adaptation of central societal institutions, and
the culture in which we live to the presence of intervening media?
Media Logic: Formatting logic that determines how the material is categorised, the choice of presentation
mode, and the selection and portrayal of social experience in the media.
- Robert Snow
- David Altheide
4 Ways media changes human communication and interaction: (Winfried Schulz)
1) Extend human communication ability (space and time)
2) Substitute social activities (used to be face-to-face)
3) Amalgamation media infiltrates into everyday life
4) Accommodate media’s valuations, formats and routines
Globalisation and media:
- Globalisation presumes the existence of technical means to extend communication and interaction
over long distances
- Propels the process of mediatization by institutionalising mediated communication and interaction
in many new contexts.
Baudrillard’s Hyperreality Theory:
- the postmodern condition where it is difficult or impossible to distinguish between reality and
representations of reality.
- Hyperreality is replacing reality
Mediation: Communication via a medium
Direct-Mediatisation (strong): Formerly non-mediated activity converts to a mediated form.
Indirect-Mediatisation (weak): Given activity is increasingly influenced with respect to form, content, or
organisation by mediagenic symbols or mechanisms.
,Allocation of resources:
- Material Resources: raw materials, buildings, knowledge, manpower and facilities
- Authority: who may speak on behalf of the institute?
Social Interaction: The parties assume social roles that confer different degrees of latitude with regard to
personal expression and influence over the course of the interaction or its outcome.
Ervig Goffman’s Dramaturgical Approach: The investigation of social interaction in terms borrowed from
theatrical performance.
- A person is both an actor and an audience.
- Presentation of self or impression management: an individual’s effort to create specific
impressions in the minds of others. Each individual's performance.
3 functions of the media on a macro level:
1) Media constitutes an interface in the relations within and between institutions
E.g. firms advertise to communicate with potential customers
2) Media constitutes a real of shared experiences
E.g. Through continuous presentation/interpretation of ‘the way things are’, a sense of identity and
community is formed
3) Media helps create a political public sphere
E.g. institutions can pursue and defend their own interests and establish their legitimacy
Mediatisation is a modernisation process on par with industrialisation and urbanisation.
The creation of a common experiential frame of reference is not just a matter of adding something new
and shared; it is also a matter of eroding and doing away with previous experience and culture.
Metacapital: the ability of a state to project its power across different fields
Virtualisation: individuals can take part in and partake of many different social institutions, irrespective of
their physical location.
- Most institutions still maintain physical-geographical bases as an important framework for social
praxis.
Week 1: Lecture Notes
Mediatised Health:
- health as an individual issue
- The changing role of experts
- Health as one’s lifestyle
- Quantification of the self
, Mediatisation Theory: The duality of media as an independent institution and as intertwined with other
institutions. It investigates the complex relations between media and other institutions.
- Non-normative theory
- Media has become an integrated part of social institutions
- Media has grown into an (independent) social institution
Media as ‘commons’: all institutions are using media
Field Theory: Pierre Bourdieu
- macro and micro fields
- individuals who are vying for power within the social fields
- rules of the game
- doxes: rules of the game (written and unwritten)
- Autonomous poles: field acting to its own logic
- Heteronomous poles: fields act under the influence of other fields
Structuration Theory: Anthony Giddens
- interaction between agents and structures
- Agents can change the structure
- Structures are formed by agents, rules and resources
Cosmopolitanised Nations: Re-imagining Collectivity in World Risk Society - Ulrich Beck
Methodological nationalism: the need to develop an analytical idiom of ‘modern society’ that is not
limited to a national ontology and that is suggestive of alternative modes of belonging.
Cosmopolitanisation itself is a constitutive feature of the reconfiguration of nationhood.
Cosmopolitan nations are reimagined through the anticipation of endangered futures.
- possibly generated through shared encounters with risk.
Nationalism: the presupposition that the national territory remains the key principle and yardstick for the
study of social, economic, political and cultural processes
Cosmopolitanism and Risk Society
- Risk Society: modern society is increasingly preoccupied with debating, preventing, and managing
risks
- In a global world, risks are hard to forecast
- Global media events produce shared exposure
