Necessary entanglements: reflections on the role of a “materialist phenomenology” in researching deep mediatization and datafication

Hepp, Andreas and Couldry, Nick ORCID: 0000-0001-8233-3287 (2023) Necessary entanglements: reflections on the role of a “materialist phenomenology” in researching deep mediatization and datafication. Sociologica, 17 (1). 137–153. ISSN 1971-8853

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Abstract

This article unpacks the deep engagement of media and communication studies with questions of social construction and the material infrastructures on which media’s role in social construction is based. For that reason, for communication scholars, there is no contradiction between constructivism and realism, and the notion of a materialist phenomenology seems necessary and unproblematic. We take materialist phenomenology further as a concept via the notion of entanglements, drawing on Karen Barad. Then we go on to explore two contemporary debates in media and communication studies which illustrate its broader commitment to understanding the materiality of social construction: first, the broad phenomenon of deep mediatization (Couldry & Hepp, 2016) whereby all aspects of social processes now take mediated forms, and second, the particular process of data colonialism (Couldry & Mejias, 2019) whereby life itself is increasingly the object of colonial appropriation in the form of extracted data.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2023 The Author(s)
Divisions:	Media and Communications
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HM Sociology H Social Sciences > HE Transportation and Communications
Date Deposited:	21 Aug 2023 09:39
Last Modified:	17 Oct 2024 16:51
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/120023

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