Materiality and Media in Communication and Technology Studies

Abstract

A newly materialist approach to the study of media technologies is emerging in several fields, including cultural studies, digital humanities, and science and technology studies (STS). Yet most technology scholarship in the communication field, informed by classical media research, still follows a broadly constructivist line focused on the meanings, appropriations, representations and semiology of communication technology and its uses. This chapter explores the conceptualization of communication and media technologies at the intersection of STS and communication studies, surveying and comparing key concepts or schools of thought in each field. A framework for mediation is proposed as a way to theorize material artifacts, communication practices, and social arrangements or structures as mutually-constitutive elements of communication and media technology.

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