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Mediality:
the cultural-symbolic
sphere of social practice
Thomas A. BauerI
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0318-539X
I - University of Vienna.
Vienna, Austria.
Abstract: 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.
Keywords: mediality; mediology; critical theory; media competence; contextual concept.
Resumo: Midialidade: a esfera cultural-simbólica da prática social Considerado o aumento da complexidade prática das paisagens midiáticas,
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a complexidade teórica da comunicação midiática tem que ser ampliada
(no horizonte e na moldura) e aprofundada (no foco) — especialmente para
cumprir a missão de aprimorar a qualidade dessa ciência: gerando complexidade em um nível de teoria lógica para um assunto que não é um objeto
em si mesmo, mas uma metáfora de descrição culturalmente programada:
comunicação, cultura, sociedade, etc. A complexidade da comunicação, da
mídia ou da sociedade não é um caráter desses construtos em si, mas uma
complexidade de pensamento que, na prática, espera-se que seja reduzida,
ao passo que na teoria seja produzida. Encarar (mais) a comunicação como
uma performance cultural da humanidade e da prática social, e encarar a
mídia (mais hermeneuticamente do que tecnicamente) requer conceituar
aqueles construtos como modelos de conhecimento, como programas que
culturalmente buscam significados conscientes e relevância significativa da
vida social. Portanto, é necessário que haja uma mudança de paradigmas de
conceitos funcionais e objetivistas para outros que sejam hermeneuticamente
abertos — não apenas, mas também para gerar um quadro mais amplo de
análise e interpretação das mudanças sociais e culturais, referidas pelo caráter
de midialidade da comunicação e da sociedade. As chamadas mídias sociais
não são novas mídias, mas mostram tanto a possibilidade, quanto o desafio
e a oportunidade de mudança de ordens da mídia. Sem dúvidas, isso requer
outros (novos) conceitos de competência da prática social.
Palavras-chave: midialidade; midialogia; teoria crítica; competência da mídia;
contexto conceitual.
Mediology: shifting the paradigms of theoretical logics.
Observing media as frame of reference of social
construction of relevance of reality.
The more complex the media landscapes are getting; the more media science
is challenged to widen (the frame) and to deepen (the focus) the logical
sphere of complexity. A scientifically acting theory is not just an ordering
system of what we think communication, media, society or culture is, could
be or should be: it needs a logical reference (format) of observation, of
conceptualisation, of definition, of determination, and of problematization,
in order to be able to match a level of complexity that goes farer then the
complexity-feeling of everyday observation. While the everyday observation
is interested in reducing the complexity (using causal or even mechanical
models of imagination), the scientific observation is expected to widen the
frame (options) of complexity until the point of getting to recognize that
there was even more to know, what we might still not be able to explain, to
order, to signify or to classify.
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The constructivist thinking teaches us that complexity is not a character of the
constructs we observe (like communication, society, culture, religion, family,
media etc.), its rather the complexity of observation, by which we objectify contexts of acting and living (cf. SCHMIDT, 2003; SCHÜTZ; LUCKMANN,
2003; BAUER, 2014). Consequently, and simply to say: we cannot resolve
problems with models of thinking (objectivation) by which we are creating
or evoking the problems. A logical frame enables to get aware of a logical
focus and perspective, which could be socio-logical, psycho-logical, or as well
anthropological, philosophical or eco-logical one.
In that frame of thinking it makes logical sense to widen the scope and
to deepen the focus theorizing media not just as tools, channels, platforms, or means of and for communication, and not to reduce the term
media to indicate by this unique media (classical or new) and not to
structurally separate the term from communication. Facing the philosophical / logical complexity of the media-term, my plaidoyer goes for a
hermeneutical turn, based on constructivist approach to understand
why we understand in the way we do what we think to understand
(cf. BAUER, 2014; GADAMER, 1972; SCHMIDT 2003). The ontological
level of media is not (just) the technology, is not (just) the logic of organization, not (just) the logic of economy — kind of unique media ontology
(cf. LESCHKE, 1972), but is rather more to explore the options of constructing
reality and to social-mutually indicate the relevance of the normative forces of reality. So, it is mind-based inter-activity of observing communication
mediatising communication as well as communicating the media sphere.
On a practical and empirical level, the relation of communication and media
happens in mode (modus operandi) of functionality and causality: media
perform communication and social interaction as communication and interaction happen because of media-activity. On a theory-logical level the
relation of communication and media is hermeneutically interpretative
mediality is the performative sphere of communication as communication
is the generative character of mediality. The ontology of media is inscribed
in communication as communication is the matter of media. Media, hermeneutically determined, is the sphere of social acting and observing with
and to each another, is a socio-logically / culture-logically (and because of
that: media-logically) comprehensible interrelation of societally mutually
engaged reference (cf. GADAMER, 1972; KURT, 2004; BAUER, 2014; BURS,
2019). Interpreting the media sphere on such constructivist level mediating
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the constructs of communication, society and culture to each other enables
to set up a mediological interpretation of society with the same consequences for any (interpretative/qualitative) analysis as it theoretically is doable
and (especially) in frame of systems theory already done, when communication of society gets analysed as a model of society of communication (cf.
LUHMANN, 1984; BECKER, 2005) — all that opens a theoretical perspective
of the mediality of the society. To bring the idea down to earth: any media
research always is social/societal research as social/societal research in same
time is research on the mediality status of the society: competence, literacy,
quality, impact inclusions.
Considering communication, as well media communication scientifically, as
a term that mirrors (frames, refers) social and societal practice, we are using
a logical model of sociability in an constructivist way of thinking: society is as
we communicate it. That demands to understand the (order of the) society or
media by understanding the social (cultural) logic of communication, knowing
that the term communication by itself is a metaphor of description contextualizing social action and observation by a concentrate (cf. BAUER, 2014, p. 33).
Any society organizing its status and its development is structurally depending from its interaction and communication system, culturally from its
communication quality, and generally from its orders of social practice. Or
even better to say: a society is, what its communication is like. The grade
of its sociality depends from its cultural level of its sociability competence
(BAUER, 2011a, p. 499). In a media-organized society the interaction and
communication structure — that means at least mutual attention, traffic,
connections, topics etc. — follows prima vista the technical and aesthetical
logics, the attractions, the facilities and possibilities but also the limitations,
options, challenges, and chances of communication through its mediatized
organization and its medialized character (cf. HEPP, 2008; BAUER, 2014, p.
327). In any case, though it is often said that media reduces the complexity
of societal communication (cf. LUHMANN, 1968), on the other hand also it
gets evident that in a media environment the society and its self-interpretation becomes more complex through this mode of communication — and
interaction structure — in manifold perspectives: the increasing amount of
information, the variety of aspects, evaluations, opinions and options coming
up to public sphere overdrive the capacities of processing of social communication. In order to feel or to realize oneself responsibly as a relevant part
or partner within a communication process, one must overlook its social
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space (frame), its relational structures, its options of meaning and relevance
and last but not least its contingence of sense. The reference to a culturally
defined social framework might help to come clear with orientation.
There is obviously a structural change ongoing in media. Especially since
media technology has entered the digital age, not only the modes of production, but much more patterns and attitudes of consumption have changed
the traditional ontology of media communication. The key character concerns the role of the consumer now becoming a user — often appealed as
prod-user, what means: the industrial fragmentation of roles as a producer
and a consumer has overcome, the interaction now happens not any more
between producer and consumer, but between user and user. This phenomenon — social convergence — is the social dimension of the technical
convergence. The former producer professionalism and the appropriate consumer skills have been fallen in one model of use: taking and giving within a
generalized and socially shared model of competence, which is a mutually
supposed expectation of trust.
This convergence can be estimated as a horizontalization of a formerly hierarchically ordered relation of trust. A model of dependence (for example:
journalism quality — audience media competence) has changed into a model
of interdependence of media literacy, which has (to) become the competence
motif of a civil society (cf. BAUER, 2011; 2014).
The emergence of social-media-communication (many-to-many media interaction) might be seen as one of the areas of media change, enabling social
networks or casual communities and giving them opportunity to establish
and to structure open systems of publicity, which by far are not, what the
concepts of public sphere think to observe, but portraying a new mode of
system of communicative trust. If this, trust (LUHMANN, 1968) is taken as the
core principle of what publicity (public sphere) is thought to be — which in
any case is a normative concept for any structurally public social communication — and if the perception is right that social media configurations are a
matter of (spontaneous and casual) trust, then social media communication
is about figuring out new relations of trust beyond of any institutionalization
of it. A relation of trust within a media environment of communication must
rely on and must engage with the medial performance of communication.
When talking about media change the question arises: what is the theoretical concept understanding media as a societal sphere, and what is or could
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be accepted as a theoretical legitimacy to build a concept of media shaping
the societal contexts of personal life? (cf. BURS, 2019). It is somehow selfevident that a structural theory of media just focusing to the technical or even
aesthetical materiality of media can not be enough framing a mediological
description of society. Media in such an theoretical context must be taken
as a hermeneutical term contextualizing the terms of change, media, culture
and society: so then not just the media are changing, what is changing is the
cultural sphere, the meaning (the observation) of (conditions and valuation
of) social practice (cf. HEPP, 2004; 2011; BAUER, 2014). When we are talking
about media in such a context, we should — so the epistemologically well
based advice of Cultural Studies (cf. HALL, 1980) — not just talk about the
structurally given facts but rather about the contexts, in which it gets the
significance it has, and which always is meant additionally, but hardly respected in analyses. Not to mention the worlds of construction in relation to
them it makes logical sense to face up to the questions of value to be focused on in educational contexts. Media is becoming to what it is and how we
understand it through the way as we use or we think we should use it as a
reference of and for social interaction and communication as well for societal
exchange. The culture of usage predominately is determined by the specific
and personally relevant contexts of living of people.
That is, what mediology aims to be: is to be understood as a broad frame of
scientification the contextual observation of society, culture and mediatized
social relation (practice). In that sense mediology is not a theory of media
(structures, systems, organization) but a theory-logical observation of use
of media related to the circumstances and contexts of individual and social
life. Mediology is not a structural theory but rather cultural hermeneutics
of everyday social practice (cf. BAUER, 2014, p. 331). Behind that approach
there is a clear motivation: it is the logic of human and human capability that
matters, not the logic of technical abilities of systems. In that sense a theory
of media owing the logics of media as a socio-cultural sphere (passage) of
social practice (mediology) is not just a theory explaining, ordering, classifying
and problematizing the structures (systems of hardware and software), but
more the theory-logical observation of social use.
The logical tentativeness of objectivism.
Concepts theorizing a construct of observation
Having said all that so shortened, of course, that aims to be a critical assessment of traditional and conventional streams of theoretical explanations
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of the interrelation of media, communication, society and social culture.
Saying, a cultural, human and social theory perspective of media communication focuses on the interrelation of observation and action and finds its
theoretical paradigm in the concept of signification (cf. HALL, 1989; 1999).
Both, observation and action — better to say: observation as an action and
action as an observation — construct significations, which get generalized
through and as symbolic interaction (cf. MEAD, 1934; HERBERT BLUMER,
1973). The exchange of signification realized in the way of relating action and
observation to codes, within a cultural programming development creates
generalized configurations of meaning. Culture then is the social interactive
and communicative environment to archive those configurations of meaning
construction in structures of symbolic and ritual interaction to be used as
statement of commitment or as a reference of control for social compliance
in case of need. Any style of life is observable as an habitual expression of
such commitment and compliance, and that is the reason why it makes
sense, when the concept of Cultural Studies observe culture as any “whole
way of life” (WILLIAMS, 1958).
Media then, taken as the distinctive factor of differentiation of social communication models, in this technical contextualization of observation of all the
process phenomena — logically not surprising — must be seen as mediating
(mediatizing) source of generation, creation of those processes, as instruments through which societal communication can be kept in institutional
order: all basic social institutes (politics, economy, education, law, cultural
rituals of sociability and social conversation) take benefit from such kind of
interpretation and configuration of mass media communication. The constellation of social communication in terms of production and consumption
follows the industrial principle of taylorization of work. Better to say: the
distinction and separation of an integrated process-system in two domains
as production and consumption portrays an industrial ideology as a constructive umbrella (Überbau) and as such it tends to generalize a model of
organization of success on an economical level by means of technology. What
is relevant to say here in the context of the attempt to re-conceptualize an
integrated model of competence, is: obviously within this industrial interpretation of media communication even the media educational programs
follow this ideology of distinguishable sectors of communication (and media)
competence and demand from audience a critical consumption, while from
(so called) communicator organizations quality and professionalism. Within
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a taylorized structure of social communication such a concept may make
practical sense, but theoretically getting emancipated from and free of such
functional conceptualizations of media communication, the concept of competence theoretically is to be used as code for public good — and further of
public value — within the description of media communication as the social
practice of constituting the society itself in the model of communication in a
medialized environment (cf. BAUER, 2008, p. 137; BAUER, 2010).
The functional paradigm within this constellation of perspectives follows the
notion of a causality in objective systems on connectivity of observation or
action — expressed in logical formation systems like mathematics or techniques (cf. WEBER, 1997). If communication is understood as a concept of
acting (and not as a concept of observation, which would be the alternative
(cf. MITTERER, 2001; SCHMIDT, 2003; BAUER, 2011; BAUER, 2014, p. 44), then
it should not be a surprise
•
that media is addressed as the generative (causal) source of influence, as a dispositive of power and influence (FOUCAULT, 1974), and
not as the technical environment of social communication of masses;
•
that the interest of analytical observation is not directed to the overall cultural and social phenomenon (which would be mediality or
mediatisation of social practice (cf. BAUER, 2008; KROTZ, 2001; 2008)
but to the unique media as an instrumental item in the middle of
systems of distribution of power, of chances of social participation,
of news, of commercial and other goods;
•
and that media theoretically are denunciated just as stages of distribution of conversational knowledge by the way of discourse (cf.
FLUSSER, 1998; FOUCAULT, 1995, p. 170; FLUSSER; WAGNERMAIER;
ZIELINSIK, 2009). Another — more universal and not just media-centred — theory-methodological approach would be able to discover (as
well) the dialogical potential of communication in a media environment and maybe would meet much closer the emancipative dimension of social media usage in search for social communication.
Yet, the fragmentation of competence of action — even if related to one
(commonly shared) process of communication and mutually agreed to be
done in an media-technological and media-organized infrastructural environment — into two domains, that of production (providing, acting) and
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that of consumption (usage, reaction) obviously is the practically (and in
consequence: the pragmatic) logical conclusion when regarding the technical, organizational and economic conditions as agency (organisational
platform) for mediation, medialization or mediatisation (cf. KROTZ, 2008,
p. 52) of all kinds of social communication. The political, educational, economic, cultural, or conversational, etc. exchange of news, of information, of
knowledge, of experience or of meaning is related to such a technical and
organizational complexity and demands such a highly developed ability and
capacity of multitasking that can not be managed with sufficient quality of
reliability and validity in one (individual) hand. So the principle of outsourcing
such capacities and of delegation the authority of acting is the only rational
solution. In that sense the affirmative acceptance of the systemic character of
social communication has found its peak of expression in Niklas Luhmann’s
system-theory statement (LUHMANN, 2004, p. 9): “All what we know about
our society, even about the world we are living with we know through mass
media”. Of course, maybe it is needless to say, that in this broad context
media are not supposed to be understood just as a socially organized system and not just as a single structural item, but as a structurally organized
system of culturally established habits of action and observation (cf. BAUER,
2014, p. 42) — and not just as a technical-cultural environment of communication exchange. A cultural theory of media communication would media
never conceptualize by referring to its structures, but rather more by facing
its culture of use as well as interpreting it as a social use of culture (cf. BAUER,
2008; 2014; HEPP, 2008; KROTZ, 2008).
Media change: alterations of the interplay
of social/societal communication
Such an axiomatic statement just done, needs to be critically questioned,
since particularly it is possible to be stated as such only within a functionalistic perspective of the relation between society and media. In order to
overcome the functionalistic mass-perspective of media it makes sense to
introduce a linguistic differentiation between mass-media-communication
and media-mass-communication. The term mass-media-communication, to
what we are generally used so far to use, in practical and theoretical contexts,
portrays the social (public) communication as one in itself closed (closable)
and completed (result bringing) process between producer-organizations
and consumer-masses through media, individually used (consumed) in the
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more or less same manner as any other does — thus being addressed as an
agglomeration of consumers, observed as being busy with same or comparable action, through that way becoming an by it’s individuals not any more
distinguishable and for that an in itself structurally closed and framed mass of
mediocrity (cf. LE BON, 1885; ORTEGA Y GASSET, 2002). The mass-perspective
in this concept is (and has always been in practical political use especially in all
authoritarian systems) an imagination with ideological and functionalist inclusions. That’s why the focus of perception lies in media, understanding it as an
instrument of influence, manipulation as well as institutional infrastructure for
providing masses with information, news, knowledge, entertainment etc. The
concept of an obligation of provision of a nation’s population with programs
of news, education, entertainment etc., as it is even demanded by law (BBC,
ORF, ORTF, ARD, ZDF. etc.) only is thinkable with three factors:
•
media communication as a dispositive of power and influence, especially dedicated to and useful for public institutions to rule the masses (as to what the population of individuals with divers’ concepts
of life are finally formed);
•
understanding communication as a process of a social agreement
of understanding through maximal common codes operated in a
process of unification of difference (consensus building / consensual agreement) and distribution of sociality (BAUER, 2006, p. 250);
•
and identity building understood as a nationally realizable frame of
knowledge and consciousness for all formally nationalized members
to be used as a code of reference in order to get identified as “one
of us” because being the same like us.
It does not need much force to imagine that this view of usability and fungibility of media for the establishment of societal order, even if this might be
considered as a positive function, in its core already includes the inclination
of usability of media as a control system. As it reaches masses it also can
form masses and can address masses.
The alternative perspective, termed as media-mass-communication portrays
in its linguistic constellation social media communication as a connection of
symbolic interaction among individually distinguishable masses (social conglomerations of same and comparable interests) using media
•
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Thomas A. Bauer
as a platform of distribution of sociability of life, experience, knowledge, and meaning (cf. BAUER, 2014, p. 33);
•
as a social network sharing individuality of life, knowledge, etc. (cf.
KROTZ, 2008).
Of course, comparing both concepts, the mass-media-communication one
and the media-mass-communication one, not only being different in its respect to modern or post-modern perspective, there also had to be considered:
there is a difference of perspective between understanding communication
and understanding media. While in context of modernity communication
is a function of media in the interest of the societal system, in postmodern
context, media is the cultural-technical environment of and for conversation. The particular theoretical complexity of mass-media-communication
is media- mass-communication — a media organized communication among
masses that is overwhelming the horizon of the commonly used management
of everyday life — while increasingly interested in and therefor increasingly
depending (as well as increasingly depending and therefor increasingly aware
of) from news and information coming from the individual’s social, cultural,
political, economical external environment. Following those interests the
system of trust got shifted from a culturally programmed and situationally
generated control to a system’s organized control, what Habermas (1981,
Vol1, p. 533; Vol 2, p. 192) called the colonization of contextual world of
living (“Lebenswelt”). Same happened to the cultural tradition of distribution
of public trust: the attribution of disposition, ability, capacity, credibility and
responsibility (all in all: the concept of competence (BAUER, 2006a, p. 58)
got systematized as an organized system of trust (cf. LUHMANN, 1968) in:
•
models of economy (success options of quantity, of circulation, of
accountability, of effectiveness);
•
models of technology (success options of perfection, of minimizing
defectiveness, of surprise through simulation of effects, especially
of repeatability, of instant-time (dis-synchronicity) and of ubiquity
(dystopia));
•
models of organization (success options of permanence, of providing
equality and even objectivity, of order resp. regularity);
•
and in models of professionalization (success options of authority,
of delegation of responsibility, and of escape from personal control
and of attribution of quality).
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Publicity (Public sphere), objectivity and periodicity are recognized by functionalistic concepts of theory as the pillars of a democratically well-functioning
publicist discourse (cf. KLEIN, 2006; MCQUAIL, 2005). It seems that the society,
since trying to overcome normative interpretations of life mainly affected by
cultural (especially religious) traditions through the project of enlightenment,
which might — according to Critical Theory (cf. HORKHEIMER; ADORNO, 1969;
2003) not (yet) be completed, now is challenged to develop such concepts of
foundations out of itself through communication on communication. That
has to be seen as a way of self-ascertainment, which seemingly is in need
of affirmation by means of systemic organization.
When taken communication theoretically not just as the social practice of
organizing unity of meaning or opinion in the interest of constructing social
order in the model of a hierarchy, but when taking communication theoretically as the challenge of facilitation to get aware of the difference of meaning
and opinion in the interest of constructing social order in the model of diversity (cf. BAUER, 2006), then public value emerges as an unavoidable category
of rationality of diversity of interpretation of sense of life as well as an unavoidable category of organization of social order of every-day-routine. Social
rationality and reasonability (which I understand as an every-day-routine
rationality mediated in social comprehension) is the terminological substrate
according to the cultural desideratum — and here emerges the connection
to the concept of competence —that assumes that humans in connection
to the manifold and complex processes of negotiation, to be generated in
various contexts and on various levels, raise and put out a set of mind, habit
and action (all in all: competence – cf. BATESON, 1972) to decide in favour of
material and immaterial conditions and resources for a sustainable validity
of sense beyond all actually existing boarders because of problems.
This assumption (desideratum) concerns the competence of distinction of the
meaning of situations and the decision for sense in mind, habit and action in
terms and in interest of benefit (good), aesthetics (image) and ethics (value)
(EDMAIR, 1968, p. 63), which is to be translated in respect of conceptualizing
media competence: the presumption that any human, under the condition
of being free in the usage of media for communication and social connection, is capable and responsible in own interests for the decision for usable
goods, for aesthetical images and ethical values within the context of everyday-routine media usage — this assumption is theoretically and culturally
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reasonable and is something that can be alleged and challenged — but has
to be educated in the words original meaning: has to be lead through as a
socio-political program in frame of a mediality concept of society while being
ware of the fact that societies increasingly get constituted in model and code
of media (cf. BAUER, 2011a).
The social media movement might bring us back to the roots of situational
(out of situation generated use of — and not for other situations made)
communication as the original and generative (not reproductive and not
reproduced) social practice of constructing and agreeing the reality, and
turns around the theoretical look to the relation of media and communication: In context of modernity and its functionalistic theories of mass-mediacommunication many media scientists thought that media make (enable,
optimize, maximizes, etc) the communication working in the sense of amplifying effects and potentials of influence (cf. MCQUAIL, 2005). Now in context
of postmodern interpretation, understanding the process as media-masscommunication we become aware: communication makes the media working
in a sense of using their potentials for fast, instant, situational and eventual communication. In political context this turn-around currently has been
shown in many stand-ups of the widely disappointed people. In general
terms, this turn-around is the mystery of WikiLeaks: the subversive use of
media opens or re-opens opportunities of emancipative communication —
for whatever that might make sense. The subversive ambition is a conscious
connotation of social usage of new (social) media (cf. SCHÄFER, 2008) Not
the social media is subversive, but it’s use is making media in particular,
what it is: a socially shared platform of a conscious emancipation, or at
least diffusely intended liberation from the traditional connotation of mass
media being in best hands when ruled by institutions and systems of traditional power. Social media consciously will not respect the rituals and
rules of mass-media-communication order and not willing to get misused
according to the functionalistic concept of society, where media overtake
the role as a dispositive of hierarchically structures discourse. Social media
use is somehow the antagonist concept to a repressive use of media order
(ENZENSBERGER, 1970) and of the occupation power of institutions — thus
provoking basis-democratic concepts of dialectic discourse in the model of
new mediality of communication.
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Media: a competence-challenge of modern societies
A cultural and social theory perspective of media communication focuses on
the interrelation of observation and action and finds its theoretical paradigm
in the concept of signification (cf. HALL, 1989; 1999). Both, observation and
action — better to say: observation as an action and action as an observation — construct significations, which get generalized through and as symbolic interaction (cf. MEAD, 1972; HERBERT BLUMER, 1973). The exchange of
signification realized in the way of relating action and observation to codes,
within a cultural programming development creates generalized configurations of meaning. Culture then is the social interactive and communicative
environment to archive those configurations of meaning construction in
structures of symbolic and ritual interaction to be used as statement of commitment or as a reference of control for social compliance in case of need. Any
style of life is observable as a habitual expression of such commitment and
compliance, and that is the reason why it makes sense, when the concept of
Cultural Studies observe culture as any “whole way of life” (WILLIAMS, 1958).
The attitude of a communicative habit has to be seen as the cultural basis
of a somehow generative competence (ability, capacity, responsibility, motivation) to produce communicatively meant action even in new or unusual
contexts of social practice – similar to what Noam Chomsky has conceptualized with the term of a “generative grammar” (CHOMSKY, 1972). On that level
all communication systems are addressed by the same general obligation.
A society, in which a critical-reflexive usage of communication and media
has become an integrative moment of education, is rich in terms of cultural
reserves for everyday challenges of a democratic configuration of its social
and political development. In that overall context then any specified professional expertise as well gains — at least: functional-credibility.
In such a context media competence is not just the ability, capacity or morality of a reasonable use of media (which is important in relation to media
as instruments of communicational connection to the development of society) but is more: is the literacy on the mediality of social and individual life
and is the personal awareness that all social relations (expectations as well
as fulfilling and evaluation) one is living with are characterized by media-typical values: grade of attention, visibility, publicity, disposability, repeatability etc. Due to the double plural of the term (media) used within everyday
practice as well as in scientific theories, and due to special media ontologies
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(LESCHKE, 2007, p. 237) the view to what the medium culturally means has
been pushed to the backgrounds: mediality as the symbolic, cultural and
social environment and reference of possibility of mutual understanding.
The symbolic interaction increasingly refers to a cultural program that has
been developed by itself (autopoiesis). Thus, the interaction program continuously replaces through itself, maintaining itself through change by itself. So,
not the media change the culture, but culture is changing in the context of
the usage of its media as a concrete social practice (cf. Bourdieu’s theory of
practice: BOURDIEU, 1998; EBRECHT; HILLEBRANDT, 2004) and through its
symbolically generated (HILLEBRANDT, 2009) medial substance. The media
system explains itself by itself and out of itself what means: nothing can be
observed outside of media (LUHMANN; 2004) and nothing whatever we watch
is media-free (HARTMANN, 2003). Being aware of this strong and decisive
position of media usage within the process of mediatization and medialisation of societal discourse indicates a fundamental need of communication
and media literacy as a public value in respect of the societal and democratic
value of all kinds of public communication.
The term of literacy is a conceptual statement related to the experience that
understanding and using general media structures provides social success
but always depends from accessibility to education. So media literacy connects to this concept of literacy and originally in all theoretical frameworks of
media education it has been related to the development of personal capacity
of accessing to social capital (BOURDIEU, 1982) and always has been seen as
a factor of rationality and reasonability within the process of personal socialisation, since it theoretically has been linked to so called cultural techniques
of usage of language, to an alphabet or a language code, that is, through
reading, writing and understanding and — related to media — especially
linked with print media (cf. BAACKE, 1997). However, from there the term
literacy has then been extended in order also to cover the skills and competencies involved in finding, selecting, analysing, evaluating and storing information, in its treatment and its use, independently of the codes or techniques
involved (STUDY ON MEDIA LITERACY IN EUROPE, 2014). Regarding that the
social communication development depends from development of media
(media technology) the concept of literacy is more or less a concept for the
pragmatic assimilation of educational status to the stages of media-technological development of social (public) communication in terms of codes,
structural design, techniques and “generative grammar” (CHOMSKY, 1972,
p. 83). So from the point of view of the conceptual development of theory
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media literacy is thought to be a specification of a general set of communicative and cultural competences in order to gain social capital.
In consequence to communication literacy media literacy is a different literacy model and is realized according to Dieter Baacke (1997) at least on
four levels:
•
media knowledge: know how the system of media is constructed,
how it is working — related to technology, economy, politics, law,
social values — and under what conditions media fulfil socially useful
or as well problematic functions to the society’s public discourse;
•
media analysis: analyse content, effects, the way and the interest of
industrial production of media and understand the position of their
potential and power;
•
media critiques: value the role of media programmes related
to the critical self-observation of the society and to the personal
development of knowledge and orientation of life;
•
media arrangement: gain ability in social participation through
productive media work and learn to express yourself by means of
media.
Of course, Baake’s concept of media competence is meant as an outcome of
media education in a still very instrumental understanding of media and is
connected to a functional concept of media as means of power, of influence
and of participation. The media-centred understanding of competence made
media education becoming a system of learning the media as an instrument
for itself. New conceptions of media competence, of course, go farther, but
still are quite rare because of the domination of the functional understanding of media. A cultural interpretation of media is much more interested
in understanding the meaning (value) of media as a specified and a socialenvironmental indicator of and for a style of communication:
•
being in contact, in relation, in mutual attention under conditions of
the ever generalized other;
•
getting aware and acquainted of each other in relation (and
relationability) to technically, organizationally, economically and
structurally standardized codes;
•
investing trust and credibility to each other through usage of a system
of symbols being arranged not in a direct way of construction, but
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Thomas A. Bauer
in a way of re-using an archive of symbolic structures (symbolically
arranged and codified interaction) (BLUMER, 1973; MEAD, 1973;
BERGER; LUCKMANN, 1972);
•
observing each other not by directly and intrinsically motivated
interests, but by supposing the importance and unavoidability of
knowing what any other (the generalized other) would know by using
the same system of mediation in order to gain information on what
is going on to happen and what of that could be a news value for
the one and through that also for any other (SCHULZ, 1976; 1990);
•
it is the code of news, of eventuality and concernment that characterizes
a media organized communication and that relates people to each
other in a more or less standardized (in terms of distributive media)
and a more or less pre-designed (in terms of net and social media)
way of interrelation, inter-observation and interaction.
To come along with this code of mediality in a way to keep the balance
between assimilation to social, cultural and symbolic environment and
accommodation of social, cultural and symbolic environment (cf. PIAGET,
1947) what means the intelligent balance between the code of media and
the code of culture of authentic, meaningful and mindful life demands a
rationality and reasonability, which has to be learned in order to train the
functional memory of individuals and the cultural one of society (cf. BATESON,
1972). The fear not to get lost in the code of media has to be combined with
the ambition to find one’s autonomy in and through communication. Not to
get lost in generalized standards or superficial design, not to get dispersed,
dissolved or dissipated in news, not to get lost in simulation or in cyberspace and not to get alienated from one’s own code of interest and building
a concept of identity and idiosyncrasy (KAMPER, 1999) exactly in that way
of getting aware of being related to any generalized other (KRAPPMANN,
2000; HABERMAS, 1973) is the feat of media competence and media literacy.
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.
thomas.bauer@univie.ac.at
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Ensaio recebido em 06/09/2020 e aprovado em 20/11/2020.
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