Mediatization Studies and Cultural Studies: A Possible Dialogue for Further Critical Analysis?

Myriam Durocher

doi:10.17951/ms.2017.1.31

Abstract

<p>Over the last decades, it has been possible to observe an increasing amount of research having for common assumption the impossibility to dissociate changes which occur within medias, culture and society. Mediatization theories, particularly developed in Scandinavian countries, and American configurations of cultural studies utilize interesting tools and conceptual material to think about the transformations that occur within the social field. Both encourage questioning the power relations and struggles that inform those transformations. However, their manner of conceiving and using “culture” and “media” as conceptual tools for analysis differ, bringing multiple and diverging ways to study and question objects, phenomenon and processes. These two approaches do not appear as irreconcilable and would take advantage of being put in dialogue as a way to see how they can possibly complement each other. For example, by enriching their mutual understanding of power and, therefore, their critical character. This article draws points of tension and convergence between cultural studies and mediatization studies. It explores cultural studies' focus on (cultural) practices as a privileged site to analyse power relations and their ongoing negotiations by and through media. This approach may resonate or complement Couldry’s (2004) proposal for a paradigm of media as practice “to help us address how media are embedded in the interlocking fabric of social and cultural life” (p. 129). This dialogue between mediatization theories and cultural studies is being put to the forefront with the hope it may allow further discussions and relevant theoretical avenues for critical research located within both fields. Thinking of this possible interplay let foresee the possibility of questioning objects, processes and phenomenon in a critical perspective in a context produced and characterised by medias’ omnipresence. It would allow researchers to question the power struggles that are negotiated through practices themselves, without neglecting the consideration that most of these practices are made by, with or within media. </p>

Highlights

It has been possible to observe an increasing amount of research aiming to conceptualize the interrelation between media, culture and society. he impossibility to dissociate changes which occur in each of these areas of life serves as common assumption for the development of mediatization theories in Scandinavian countries, of American and British conigurations of cultural studies and of theories inspired by the concept of media cultures [Maigret 2009] in France
M hese two ields bring interesting tools and conceptual material to think about the transformations that occur within the social ield, each of them questioning power relations and struggles that inform those transformations
Framing the media as taking part in the constitution of culture and advocating for its analysis within it rather than isolating is coherent with Williams’ deinition of culture. he latter is deined as not being dominated by only one mode of production or a dominant entity, but rather needed to be understood by the analysis of its constitutive practices, one of which is the media. his understanding of media practices as produced by and embedded in a larger set of relations is characteristic of the development of cultural studies in American academic ield

Summary

Introduction

It has been possible to observe an increasing amount of research aiming to conceptualize the interrelation between media, culture and society. he impossibility to dissociate changes which occur in each of these areas of life serves as common assumption for the development of mediatization theories in Scandinavian countries, of American and British conigurations of cultural studies and of theories inspired by the concept of media cultures [Maigret 2009] in France. We are analysing what is structuring daily and social life and what meanings, values and signiications are embodied within those practices and their articulation His kind of analysis of practice is embedded within a set of relations that actualize, organize and allow it to suggest a rupture with a form of analysis consisting in isolating the object to unravel its constitutive elements. His conception of practice as constitutive of culture and as not being imposed over or the fruit of a dominant entity is corresponding to the development of cultural studies inluenced by the poststructuralist approach It is in line with the body of work of Michel Foucault and its conception of power as productive and circulating within the social ield (this deinition of power as produced within culture will be addressed later in this article). Such an understanding of culture as constituted by and within practice situate the media as one of the sites (but not the only one) of production, difusion and exercise of power

An analysis of media in its interrelation with culture and society

Media as a cultural form

Complementary approaches?