Abstract:
Research since the early years of the 21st century consistently shows how through the years more of our time gets spent using media, how being concurrently exposed to media has become a foundational feature of everyday life, and that consuming media for most people increasingly takes place alongside producing media. Contemporary media devices, what people do with them, and how all of this fits in the organization of our everyday life disrupt and unsettle well-established views of the role media play in society. Instead of continuing to wrestle with a distinction between media and society, this contribution proposes we begin our thinking with a view of life not lived with media, but in media. The media life perspective starts from the realization that the whole of the world and our lived experience in it can be seen as framed by, mitigated through, and made immediate by (immersive, integrated, ubiquitous and pervasive) media. In this presentation, the media life perspective is developed by correlating the claims of contemporary social theory with recent reports on media use among teenagers around the world.
 
Bio:
Mark Deuze holds a joint appointment as an Associate Professor of Telecommunications at Indiana University in Bloomington, United States, and as Professor of Journalism and New Media at Leiden University, The Netherlands. Publications of his work include five books – including "Media Work" (Polity Press, 2007), guest-edited special issues of journals on convergence culture (Convergence, 2008; International Journal of Cultural Studies, 2009), and articles in journals such as The Information Society, New Media & Society, and Journalism Studies. Forthcoming in 2010: "Managing Media Work" (contracted with Sage), and in 2011: "Media Life" (contracted with Polity Press).

To be followed by a small group discussion at 1:45pm in CSL 301

Infostructure Series co-founded by Christian Sandvig, Associate Professor, Media and Cinema Studies.