“Networks of belonging: between mediation and mediatisation”

Damásio, M., Cordeiro, P, M; Starkey, G; Botelho, I; Dias, P; Ganito, C; Ferreira C & Henriques, S (2013). “Networks of belonging: between mediation and mediatisation” . Carpentier, N & Schroder, K (Eds.). Transforming audiences, transforming societies, 101-119London: Routledge.

Abstract: Contemporary forms of media and social life challenge assumptions of past explanatory models and call for new theoretical and critical approaches. This chapter discusses if and how today’s technological change implies a socially distributed setting that can be summarised within the concept of “networks of belonging”. We focus on two concepts, mediatisation and mediation, as opportunities to capture the process of an exponential growth of technical communication media in different social and cultural spheres. These concepts can also be used to explore the transformations of individual and collective processes of use and appropriation afforded by those same technologies. Discussing these networks of belonging implies questioning the possibility that media have become the form and the infrastructure for the social and an enabler of individual and collective activities. Such discussion also allows an exploration of how the emergence of networks propels new developments in communication media and of the consequences those transformations may have on society and individuals.