Mediality: the cultural-symbolic sphere of social practice

Auteurs-es

Mots-clés :

mediality, mediology, critical theory, media competence, contextual concept.

Résumé

 

 At least since the practical complexity of media landscapes is growing, the theoretical complexity of media communication has to be widened (horizon and frame) and deepened (focus) — especially when fulfilling the mission and the quality of science: generating complexity on a level of logical theory towards a subject that is not an object by itself but a culturally programmed metaphor of description: communication, culture, society etc. The complexity of communication, media or society is not a character of those constructs themselves but a complexity of thinking, in practice hopefully reduced, in theory hopefully produced. Facing communication (more) as a cultural performance of humanness and of social practice and facing media (more hermeneutically than technically) demands to conceptualize those constructs as models of knowledge, as culturally programs in search of mindful meaning and meaningful relevance of social /societal life. Therefore, there is need of a shifting paradigm from functional, objectivist concepts to hermeneutically open concepts — not only, but also to generate a wider frame of analysis and interpretation of social and cultural change referred through the mediality character of communication and society. So called social media are not new media but show the possibility as well the challenge and chance of change of media orders. Of course, that demands other (new) competence concepts of social practice. 

Biographie de l'auteur-e

Thomas A. Bauer, University of Vienna

Thomas A. Bauer is professor in the Department of Communication of University of Vienna, Austria. His research is in media culture, media education, media literacy studies, social, cultural and media change, transcultural communication, interreligious dialogue, media philosophy, media theory, and epistemology for social sciences. He has published several books and articles both in Austria and abroad. 

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Publié-e

2021-04-19

Numéro

Rubrique

Artigos | Articles