Media Ecology and the Blurring of Public and Private Practices: A Case from the Middle East

Chiara De Franco

doi:10.7146/politik.v19i4.27633

Abstract

This paper aims at posing the basis for a new conceptualization of the impact of ‘old’ and ‘new’ media in international politics by creating a dialogue between the practice theoretical approach in IR (Adler and Pouliot 2011) and the medium theory in media studies (Meyrowitz 1985). Building on these approaches, the paper argues that in order to understand the role of the media in international politics it is necessary to shift the focus from media outlets and organisations to the media as environments, and from media content to media ecology. In fact, the paper argues that changes in the media ecology can produce changes in the social settings where international practices develop. It particular, it argues that the media ecology can affect the articulation of public and private and lead to the emergence of international practices where appropriate and competent behaviour reconstitute the private in the public (and vice versa). To explore its theoretical claims further and clarify how useful this approach can be to understand the role of the media in the Middle East, the paper discusses how an Israeli/Iranian movement catalysed by a Facebook (FB) page attempts at fostering peace. It explains how such a group has developed a Transnational Activist Network (TAN) bringing people together through shared private experiences.

Highlights

Few ‘regions’ of the world have received as much media attention as the Middle East
The paper seeks to articulate a new approach to the study of the role of the media in international politics by creating a dialogue between the practice theoretical approach in International Relations (Adler and Pouliot 2011) and the medium theory in media studies (Meyrowitz 1985)
It will be maintained that the media ecology creates constraints to distinguish between private and public dimensions of life and that this has repercussions on what we understand as competent behaviour

Summary

Chiara de Franco

Few ‘regions’ of the world have received as much media attention as the Middle East. Public discourses about regional (in)security have contributed to shaping common understandings of regional conflicts and of that region as a distinct political entity (Bilgin 2004). This paper seeks to shift the focus from media outlets and organisations to the media as environments, and from media content to media ecology, which should be understood as the communication systems “within which human culture grows, giving form to its politics, ideologies, and social organization” (Milberry 2012) It asks if and how the media ecology affects the development of international practices, here defined as “socially meaningful patterns of action which, in being performed more or less competently, simultaneously embody, act out, and possibly. Reify background knowledge and discourse in and on the material world” (Adler and Pouliot 2011, 6) To answer this question, the paper seeks to articulate a new approach to the study of the role of the media in international politics by creating a dialogue between the practice theoretical approach in International Relations (Adler and Pouliot 2011) and the medium theory in media studies (Meyrowitz 1985). Far from being a fully-fledged case study, this example should be considered as a starting point for developing International Relations research agendas exploring the connection between media ecology and the articulation of public and private spaces in international practices

The debates

From media content to media ecology

Reconstituting private and public spaces

Israel Loves Iran

Conclusions