The Encapsulated vs. the Cosmopolitan Self? : Towards a Phenomenological Understanding of Mediatized Communication and Complicit Surveillance

• Mediatization refers to a meta-process whereby social life in its totality is (re)embedded in and saturated with mediated processes. This paper addresses the relationship between two theoretically diverging, yet socially intertwined, realms pertaining to various mediatization patterns: cosmopolitanism and surveillance. Mediatization implies increasing opportunities for ‘extending the self’, experienced in terms of mediated proximity, immediacy and boundary transgression – ultimately sustaining a more cosmopolitan outlook of the world. Yet, mediatization also brings growing opportunities for securitization, boundary control and social encapsulation, on behalf of societal institutions as well as individuals and groups. Contemporary forms and extensions of surveillance and cosmopolitanism are increasingly interwoven through the meta-process of mediatization, most recently the social saturation of converging ‘social’ media. This paper suggests that phenomenology, as a heuristic tool, offers a well-contextualized and grounded socio-cultural perspective to grasp the everyday dimensions and subjective moral positionalities ensuing from increased mediatization and related openings and closures

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap -- Medievetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Media and Communications -- Media Studies (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap -- Kommunikationsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Media and Communications -- Communication Studies (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Annan samhällsvetenskap -- Tvärvetenskapliga studier inom samhällsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Other Social Sciences -- Social Sciences Interdisciplinary (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Media and Communication Studies

Medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kon (subject category)