Intermedial passages in time and space : Contexts, currents and circuits of media consumption

• This paper discusses spatial, temporal and structural aspects of mediated communication. It is based on experiences from the Swedish media ethnographic Passages project, where an interdisciplinary research team for five years empirically investigated interacting processes of communication and consumption in a shopping centre. (1) Contexts of media spaces. The interplay between people and media - including so-called new media - are always spatially contextualised, in spite of the transgressivity of communication. Places frame and delimit media uses, which at the same time form spatialities as meaningful geographic places and social worlds. The collective Passages ethnography invited renewed reflection on concepts like space, place, borders and movements (Clifford, Hannerz, Thrift, Goss, Hardt & Negri, Ang, McCarthy, Couldry). (2) Currents of media consumption. The processes of media consumption as multifarious temporal chains of acquisition and use also form time at all levels, from present moments to historical memories that shape identities. Inspired by Walter Benjamin-s Arcades Project, the Passages project developed a historical perspective on how the past, present and future are combined when media structure modern daily life. Reworking the borders between consumption and reception research gave a new understanding of flows and currents of media use (Williams, Ricoeur, Wertsch, Radway, Drotner, Bolter & Grusin, Miller, Slater). (3) Circuits of media types. Media industries and research have conventional ways to define and differentiate media types. These boundaries are challenged by technical, social and cultural transformations. The Passages studies of media in a shopping centre - and the mall as a medium! - made visible a series of border cases and intermedial hybrids that highlighted limitations of traditional categories. An expanded media concept let us scrutinize how media circuits are both kept apart and interconnected in intertextual, intersubjective and intercontextual practices (Kristeva, Genette, Kittler, Hörisch, Kress & van der Leeuwen, Peters, Thompson, Lehtonen).

Nyckelord

medier

forskning

metod

etnografi

reflexivitet

kommunikation

SOCIAL SCIENCES

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP

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