Living Within the Complexity of Communicative Figurations: The Challenges of a Multiple Communicative Involvement

• In Event: Good Life in Mediatized Worlds? Critical Perspectives

Abstract

The question if or in which respect mediatized worlds further or hinder “good lives” is much debated; both theoretical arguments and empirical evidence on this issue are highly fragmented. As an integrative approach to analyzing the interplay between media and society we propose the concept of “communicative figurations”: These are based on specific media ensembles, forms of communication, typical constellations of actors and certain orientations of action; as such they are the “textures” by which we communicatively construct our social reality. Considering that mediatization leads to an increasing number of communicative options, the “good life” can be reconstructed in terms of how individuals make sense of a) each of the communicative figurations they are involved in and b) the overall pattern of these figurations. This will be illustrated by empirical evidence on the communicative figurations of local communities and national public spheres.

Authors

• Andreas Hepp, U of Bremen

• Uwe Hasebrink, Hans Bredow Institute for Media Research