From London to Bali: Raymond Williams and communication as transport and social networks

Abstract

This article unearths Raymond Williams’ approach to communication as transport and social networks. Existing literature argues that the field of communication’s withdrawal from the study of transport leads to at least two setbacks: media presentism and a narrowed meaning of communication and culture. This article excavates Williams’ concept of ‘communication as transport and social networks’ by first revisiting his larger method of cultural materialism that sees communication as a whole complex assemblage of different modes of communication to facilitate connection. This is then followed by a discussion on the use of this concept in his various works and, more intensively, in The Country and the City. To emphasize Williams’ relevance to contemporary contexts, the next part of the article deals with an analysis of how digital media and contemporary transport networks facilitate the reproduction of Bali as a paradise. This article calls for a more dialectical understanding of communication that includes the inextricable relations between mobility and sociality, the material and the symbolic, and the transmission and the ritual in shaping human lives.