Samenvatting Communication As A Social Force (CM1009)
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Course
Communication As A Social Force (CM1009)
Institution
Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam (EUR)
This is a summary of (except 1 of weel 7) all articles in the course Communication as a Social Force of BA1 year Communication and Media at Erasmus University.
Communication as a social force CM1009
(All) Article summaries
Important term used
Concept/important person
Article week 1: Mediatization of society by Hjarvard
What are the consequences of the gradual and increasing adoption of central societal
institutions, and the culture in which we live to the presence of intervening media?
A theory of the media as agents of social and cultural change.
This article presents a theory of the influence media exert on society and culture.
The concept most central to an understanding of the importance of media to culture is
Mediatization - a double-sided process in which the media on the one hand emerge as an
independent institution, while on the other hand media become an integrated part of other
institutions like politics, work, family and religion.
Media logic - refers to the institutional and technological modus operandi of the media,
including the ways in which media distribute material and symbolic resources and make use
of formal and informal rules.
Schultz and Krotz explain the processes whereby media changes human interaction:
1. They extend human communication abilities in space and time
2. The media substitute social activities that previously took place face-to-face
3. The media investigates an amalgamation of activities; face-to-face combined with
mediated communication
4. Actors in different sectors have to adapt their behavior to accommodate the media’s
values
Medium theory - is a mode of analysis that examines the ways in which particular
communication media and modalities impact the specific content (messages) they are meant
to convey.
- Mediatization theory is consonant with the medium theory with respect to taking note
of the different media’s formatting of communication and the impacts on the
interpersonal relations it gives rise to.
By the mediatization of society, we understand the process whereby society to an increasing
degree is submitted to, or becomes dependent on, the media and their logic. This process is
characterized by a duality in that the media have become integrated into the operations of
other social institutions, while they also have acquired the status of social institutions in their
own right.
Media logic - a form of communication, and the process through which media transmit and
communicate information
Social interaction consists of communication and action.
Within the process of mediatization, we may distinguish between a direct (strong) and an
indirect (weak) form of mediatization, Hjarvard explains. Direct mediatization refers to
situations where formerly non-mediated activity converts to a mediated form. Indirect
mediatization is when a given activity is increasingly influenced with respect to form, content,
or organization by symbols or mechanisms.
Noor Borggreven 612552 08/02/2022
, One general effect of mediatization is a virtualization of social institutions. Earlier, the
institutions were more bound to specific places. Virtualization of social institutions goes hand
in hand with a domestication of those institutions. Typically, the home and family are
increasingly the point around which access to other institutions revolves. The virtualization of
institutions implies that the home loses some of its ability to regulate family members’
behavior, and it is left to the individual to decide in which institution he or she is taking part,
and adjust his/her behavior accordingly. Institutional contexts are no longer defined by their
locus, but are a matter of individual choice. Human experience is no longer bound to local or
national context, but takes place in a globalized context.
Media alter interaction:
1. It allows individuals to keep several social interactions going at the same time
2. It also allows actors to optimize social interaction to their own advantage
3. Media makes it possible to manage information to and from participants
4. Mediated interaction extends and complicates the use of territories in the interaction
including the ways in which we define ourselves in relation to others
Article week 2: Political communication in an age of visual connectivity by Ekman
Exploring Instagram practices among Swedish politicians.
This article explores the specific features of Instagram as a platform for visual political
communication. It analyses how forms of connectivity are expressed and how their social
media use relates to news media.
There is a growing trend in political communication research to relate changes in information
activities of political actors to the increasingly central role of mediatization in contemporary
societies.
Today, citizens, organizations and corporations as well as politicians take advantage of the
new communicative possibilities enabled by the fragmented landscape of social media.
News journalism is still a central source of information that people use when informing
themselves about political issues, Strömbäck eplains, but political actors are no longer
completely dependent on the news media in order to reach out, as many of them now have
become influential and powerful media producers themselves.
Celebrity politics - a specific trajectory of mediatization; it underlines how politicians lean on
the styles and aesthetic conventions of being well known, through performed connectivity
online.
- In a broad sense, connectivity can be seen as a strategy that creates symbolic ties
between individual politicians and various spheres of society, from the micro-political
level of the family to the macro-political level of global international relations.
- Political connectivity is by far the most common type, while other identified categories
such as celebrity, media, family and civil society are more equally represented.
Despite the fact that social media have enabled politicians to communicate more
independently from news media, many of the actors included in this study still rely on
news media, not only as an arena but as a symbolic center for the political discourse.
Politicians’ Instagram use can be understood as a way of producing visual flows of
professional and private practices in which the authenticity of every- day political life takes
center stage. In relation to politics, this form of ‘celebritization’ contributes to a
depoliticization of public discourses, primarily by shifting focus from ideological questions to
lifestyle politics.
Noor Borggreven 612552 08/02/2022
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