Mobility, media and relational communicative repertoires: An analysis of everyday family interactions

Abstract

This article focuses on the interrelation between everyday mobility, media and communication technologies and interaction practices in family relationships. The analysis is based upon a mixed method qualitative study conducted with ten couples and families in Germany. The findings indicate that the usage of communication media is strongly related to the patterns of partners’ and family members’ mobility and is shaped as part of relational communicative repertoires. Communication media are instrumentalized to coordinate time- and space-relevant aspects and thereby induce a flexibilization of communication. Relational communicative repertoires are not only characterized by different forms of media usage in relationships. Rather,they can be understood as a collection of the communicative dealings of family members in the context of their everyday structures altogether. The findings clarify that practices of ‘doing mobility’ are a crucial and increasing part of those negotiations and foster a thesis on he mobilization of relational repertoires in couple and family relationships.