From sociality of media to the social as a medium: Diagrams and models of media theory

Abstract

From sociality of media to the social as a medium: diagrams and models of media theory 1 abstract This article takes mediating processes, rather than media objects, as its focus. It examines three different formulations of knowledge mediation, each of which can be modelled as a diagrammatic structure that takes historical as well as contemporary form. These three formulations are declarative/instrumental, contemplative/ generative, and stochastic/constitutive, and each is positioned differently with respect to the idea that media "operationalize" knowledge. The goal is to suggest that we might "think media" beyond instrumental activity, by paying attention to mediating processes, rather than media objects, and that this might shift focus in media theory from attending to the social character of media, towards understanding the mediating aspects of "the social".We all know that media are social, not simply technical or technological instruments, but part of the social world in which they are situated. Technodeterministic notions are long banished from our conception of the ways media work. But, to fully conceptualize what media are and how, on what terms we assume their identity and theorize their function, we might need to 1. This article is a revised, slightly extended, version of the talk given at the MEA meeting in Denver, June 2015.