MEDIA LOGIC AND SOCIAL INTERACTION

Abstract

Media logic and formats associated with television programming are shown to contribute to our understanding of the role of reflexive communication in defining a situation, and suggest the relevance of a theory of mediation for clarifying how an agent's communication products can influence the time, place, and manner of activities for us all. Social rules informed by conventional temporal and spatial considerations can be transformed through electronic content and formats. Viewers obtain information from mass media content that can transcend conventional personal experience (e.g., a 10‐year‐old child can learn how to be a teenager in 1940 or 1990). Materials illustrate how media logic and formats compatible with popular culture increasingly guide the form, content, and scheduling of social interaction. By the same token, certain kinds of experience are recognized for their mediated characteristics (e.g., rhythm, pacing, syntax, and grammar). As these patterns are incorporated into other realms of social life, temporal and spatial features of organized activities will embody the new formats. Viewing mass mediation from this perspective can illuminate a path for development of a theoretic understanding of mediation throughout social life.

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