The Digital Turn in Media and Communication Studies

Media Watch ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
UMA SHANKAR PANDEY
Keyword(s):  
Communication Studies ◽  
Media And Communication

scholarly journals Mobile bystanders and rubbernecks, disaster tourists, and helpers. Towards a theoretical framework for critically studying action possibilities at accident sites

2021 ◽  
pp. 205015792098482
Author(s):  
Linus Andersson ◽  
Ebba Sundin
Keyword(s):  
Digital Media ◽  
News Media ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Communication Studies ◽  
Mobile Media ◽  
Ethical Implications ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
Media And Communication ◽  
Media Practices

This article addresses the phenomenon of mobile bystanders who use their smartphones to film or take photographs at accident scenes, instead of offering their help to people in need or to assist medical units. This phenomenon has been extensively discussed in Swedish news media in recent years since it has been described as a growing problem for first responders, such as paramedics, police, and firefighters. This article aims to identify theoretical perspectives that are relevant for analyzing mobile media practices and discuss the ethical implications of these perspectives. Our purpose is twofold: we want to develop a theoretical framework for critically approaching mobile media practices, and we want to contribute to discussions concerning well-being in a time marked by mediatization and digitalization. In this pursuit, we combine theory from social psychology about how people behave at traumatic scenes with discussions about witnessing in and through media, as developed in media and communication studies. Both perspectives offer various implications for normative inquiry, and in our discussion, we argue that mobile bystanders must be considered simultaneously as transgressors of social norms and as emphatic witnesses behaving in accordance with the digital media age. The article ends with a discussion regarding the implications for further research.

scholarly journals The Point Is to Change It! Introduction to Critical Political Interventions in Media and Communication Studies

2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 214-230
Author(s):  
Sašo Slaček Brlek ◽  
Jernej Amon Prodnik
Keyword(s):  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Special Section ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Communication Studies ◽  
Historical Trends ◽  
Information And Communication ◽  
Historical Contextualization ◽  
World Information ◽  
Relations Of Power ◽  
Media And Communication

The intention of this paper is to provide a historical overview and an introduction to the interviews with Bodgan Osolnik, Breda Pavlič, Cees Hamelink, Daya K. Thussu, Peter Golding and Dan Hind presented in this special section. Following Marx, we entitled the section The Point Is to Change It! Critical Political Interventions in Media and Communication Studies. We discuss the need for critical theory to bridge the divide between theory and practice because this notion is central to all of the interviews in one way or another. We also provide a historical contextualization of important theoretical as well as political developments in the 1970s and 1980s. This period may be seen as a watershed era for the critical political economy of communication and for the political articulation of demands for a widespread transformation and democratization in the form of the New World Information and Communication Order initiative. We believe that many contemporary issues have a long history, with their roots firmly based in this era. The historical perspective therefore cannot be seen as nostalgia, but as an attempt to understand the historical relations of power and how they have changed and shifted. In our view, the historical perspective is crucial not only for understanding long-lasting historical trends, but also to remind ourselves that the world is malleable, and to keep alive the promises of the progressive struggles of the past.

scholarly journals On the relativity of old and new media: A lifeworld perspective

2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 657-672 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manuel Menke ◽  
Christian Schwarzenegger
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Empirical Data ◽  
Theoretical Work ◽  
Daily Basis ◽  
Communication Studies ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
Media Change ◽  
Media And Communication ◽  
Depth Interviews ◽  
Accurate Observation

It is an old, yet, accurate observation that the ‘newness’ of media is and most probably will continue to be a catalyst for research in media and communication studies. At the same time, there are numerous academic voices who stress that studying media change demands an awareness of the complexities at play interweaving the new with the old and the changes with the continuities. Over the last decades, compelling theoretical approaches and conceptualizations were introduced that aimed at grasping what defines old and new media under the conditions of complex, disruptive media change. Drawing from this theoretical work, we propose an empirical approach that departs from the perception of media users and how they make sense of media in their everyday affairs. The article argues that an inquiry of media change has to ground the construction of media as old or new in the context of lifeworlds in which media deeply affect users on a daily basis from early on. The concept of media ideology (Gershon, 2010a, 2010b) is used to investigate notions of ‘oldness’ and ‘newness’ people develop when they renegotiate the meaning of media for themselves or collectively with others. Based on empirical data from 35 in-depth interviews, distinct ways how the relativity but also relationality of old and new media are shaped against each other are identified. In the analysis, the article focuses on the aspects of rhetoric, everyday experiences, and emotions as well as on media generations, all of which inform media ideologies and thereby influence how media users define old and new media.

Rationalitäten des Lebensendes

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Digital Media ◽  
Chronic Diseases ◽  
Terminal Care ◽  
Hospice Care ◽  
Social Protest ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
Communication Studies ◽  
Fundamental Change ◽  
Nursing Science ◽  
Media And Communication

In recent decades, the cultural, social, medical and political handling of the end of life has been subject to fundamental change. Against the background of the rise of chronic diseases and longer dying processes, new problems have occurred, leading, amongst other things, to new conceptions of terminal care. In this volume, experts from various disciplines (ethnology, history, media and communication studies, medicine, nursing science and sociology) analyse the current debate on dying, death and bereavement and its relevance to society. The articles the book contains focus on key developments at the end of a life, such as current concepts in palliative and hospice care, individual prevention practices and public representations in the (digital) media landscape, and address their institutional and sociocultural contexts. In doing so, they challenge several truisms of previous research that arose due to close connections between social protest and scholarship. With contributions by Florian Greiner; Julia Dornhöfer; Anna Wagner, Manuel Menke, Susanne Kinnebrock and Marina Drakova; Michaela Thönnes; Lilian Coatas; Mara Kaiser; Sabine H. Krauss; Anna Kitta; Anna D. Bauer; Anke Offerhaus; Thorsten Benkel and Werner Schneider

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