Nick Couldry, Sociologia dei nuovi media. Teoria sociale e pratiche mediali digitali, Pearson, 2015
10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17293
application/pdf
2038-3460
17293
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Davide Bennato
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/
Tecnoscienza – Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies
Nick Couldry, Media, Society, World. Social Theory and Digital Media Practice, Pearson, 2015
Text.Serial.Journal
https://tecnoscienza.unibo.it/
7
Book Reviews
2016-07-08
2023-06-20
2016-07-08
2023-08-07
153-157
TS
Davide Bennato
2016/07/08
10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17293
153
Università di Catania
2038-3460
1
en
157
Nick Couldry, Media, Society, World. Social Theory and Digital Media Practice, Pearson, 2015
https://tecnoscienza.unibo.it/article/download/17293/16155
7
Book Reviews                                                            153
pointed out, e.g. the centrality of human labor for networking (Downey)
and the opposite (complementary) automation of algorithms (Gillespie).
    The fertile encounter between STS and media studies is evident
through concepts like information labor (vs media broadcast/producti-
on); power users or superusers (vs designers/users); calculated publics (vs
media audience). Such concepts emerge exactly from media technology as
a cross-field convergence.
    The book as a knowledge enterprise attempts to re-think about given
classifications and infrastructures of disciplinary knowledge in two fields
of established scholarship (namely, STS and media studies). As such, it is
very much attuned with an STS sensibility, summarized by concepts like
“mutual constitution”, “co-construction” and “heterogeneous networks”.
    Indeed, as a scholar trained in Communication Studies then focused
on STS, my critical remark after reading the book is that it embraces
more of STS lessons than of Media Studies, despite the declared aim to
make the two fields fertilize each other. This is an outcome that can be in-
terpreted in different ways– it could be Media Studies scholars are more
open “to be hybridized”, or more cosmopolitan than provincial in their
scholarship. It could also be that this STS-driven hybridation is the inevi-
table result of electing heterogeneous materiality (in an STS vein) as the
starting and entry point of most contributions to the volume.
    However, this leaves the main merit of the book untouched. It sound-
ly succeeds in showing that materiality matters and is there, going beyond
and against the resistant myth of immateriality and de-materialization as
univocal, irresistible hallmarks of digital media technologies, eventually
bringing the myth itself in the picture and connecting it to wires and ca-
bles.


                                   ***

Nick Couldry
Sociologia dei nuovi media. Teoria sociale e pratiche mediali digitali,
Milano, Pearson, 2015, pp. 288 [italian translation of Media, Society,
World. Social Theory and Digital Media Practice, 2012]

Davide Bennato Università di Catania

    One of the most interesting debates in the field of Media Studies is
about which role social theory plays. This debate stems from the critique
of postmodernism and the disappearance of the social that usually afflicts
cultural studies and thereby Media Studies. Trying to solve this problem,
Nick Couldry makes a very delicate as much as fascinating intellectual
move: the proposal of a socially oriented media theory (9). This proposal
154                                                          Tecnoscienza - 7 (1)

is very important from different points of view. Moreover, it is especially
relevant that such proposal can find his way into the Italian debate about
Media Studies thanks to this translation of a work of one of the most in-
teresting authors of the great Media Studies’ school deriving from the re-
searches of David Morley and Roger Silverstone.
    Couldry’s proposal is very important, first of all, because media in so-
cial theory have always had a marginal role, usually considered as a useful
addendum of wide social processes. A demand for a sociology with the
media, and not anymore – or not only – a sociology of the media, is
emerging more and more, in the same way in which, within the tension
between culture and society, there is the need of a cultural sociology and
not simply a sociology of culture (Alexander 2003). Secondly, the need to
use the ability of social theory to go deep into media processes is getting
stronger and stronger, because the study of media never has had the so-
cial theory it deserves.
    In order to outline this socially oriented media theory, Couldry tries to
define a social ontology based on two key concepts: the social practices
and the media. The centrality of social practices makes the point inside
the current debates on the importance of social phenomena considered as
tools people use to makes sense of the world. Couldry is aware of the lim-
its of a solely performative approach, thereby he uses as a theoretical
support the Actor-Network Theory of Bruno Latour and John Law to de-
scribe in which way social practices become stable and acquire an onto-
logical solidity (56). From this perspective, the idea of considering mobile
apps as a way in which this stabilization process works results interesting
(57). Going further in this analysis, Couldry tries to make a taxonomy of
the practices distinguish between simple forms – “searching”, “showing”,
“presencing”, “archiving” (57-69) – and complex forms: “keeping up
with the news”, “commentary”, “screening out,” and “keeping all chan-
nels open” (69-74). In this continuous research of a social ontology, me-
dia are considered as a universe of social practices (59) that became im-
portant thanks to what Couldry calls “the myth of the mediated centre”
(88). According to this point of view, society would be constituted of a
core of truth, a natural centre, and the media would have a privileged re-
lationship to this centre. This privileged relationship is transformed in a
series of media rituals namely condensed forms of action reinforcing the
myth of the mediated centre (89). Following this argument, the media are
neither artifacts, nor languages, but rituals or schematic actions recog-
nizable in their variability (94), organized around categorical differences –
like Durkheim’s distinctions between sacred and profane. A classical ex-
ample in this sense is the concept of the “media event”, that from being
exceptional – following Dayan and Katz’s (1992) definition – becomes
ordinary (103). To demonstrate how rituals and their categories are un-
derstandable in a wider social landscape, Couldry makes a detailed analy-
sis of the celebrity culture (105-110).
    Once described the key elements of his original social ontology, the
Book Reviews                                                             155
discourse begins to tackle some of the delicate issues of cultural studies.
    The first is undoubtedly the question of the power of the media, a
central theme of media studies. Keeping up with the tradition of cultural
studies, the power of the media’s concept is intended as symbolic power
(115), however, in order to maintain the centrality of practices, power is
defined as control of a property built by the media themselves. The con-
cept used here is that of “hidden injuries” (118-123), or that sensation of
absence created and resolved by the media themselves using the idea that
only what appears in the media has value (119). Once Couldry has clari-
fied the hidden injuries concept, the chapter analyzes one of the most
studied issues in media studies, with relevant sociological consequences:
reality media, their potential to cure the hidden injuries (126), to exercise
pedagogical authority and to create social facts in their own image (131).
Through this hypothesis, Couldry is able to describe in term of symbolic
power the phenomena of celebrity and perceived criminality, as well as
the role of gatekeeper played by search engines.
    The second question is the relationship between political power and
the internet, a great classic in the field of internet studies. The analysis
begins with a critique of scholars considered as canonical for this issue:
Henry Jenkins and his concept of convergence culture (2006), Yochai
Benkler and his idea of commons-based peer productions (2006), Manuel
Castells and his analysis based on the dichotomy between the net and the
self (1996). What remains of this critique is the definition of the relation-
ship between political power and the internet along three axes: the au-
thority (as political legitimacy), evaluation (assessment of politics) and
framing (the world built by politics; 156). From these results, Couldry
begins a description of the impact of the digital media on new political
actors, how the former can help the latter to have a role in the political
debate intended as a form of organized (democratic) power, and in which
digital media cannot change well-stabilized trends as the scepticism of
young people towards politics.
    Couldry’s discourse starts to show its limits when he discusses the is-
sue of media culture and media ethics. Media cultures are seen as ways in
which media are appropriated by non-Western cultures. At the root of
this process there is the idea that media cultures are thickenings of trans-
local processes that are locally specific (211-212). In order to understand
why there is this process of thickenings, Couldry uses the perspective of
needs. Media cultures are shaped by a variety of needs such as economic,
ethnic, political, religious, social, leisure and recognition related ones.
Considering that the variability of media cultures is based on needs is a
quite serious limitation, firstly because this idea – classical in Maslow's
theory and in the uses and gratifications approach – lets the concept of
social structure come back, making the explanation based on practice
weaker, secondly because the list of needs is confusing and the categories
ought to be mutually exclusive – how can we distinguish the political
need from the need of social recognition?
156                                                           Tecnoscienza - 7 (1)

    The media ethics is another major weakness of the book. Despite the
attempt to take distances from the ethics of journalism (245) and despite
a fine discussion of the difference between the ethical systems of Kant
and Aristotle, media ethics is intended as an ethical act with media, or
media as ethically significant practices. This approach would not be a
problem if it were not translated into an ethic of communication, which is
something completely different. The question addressed is therefore ar-
ticulated in the terms of what are the virtues that help to make good me-
dia practices. The response is: accuracy, sincerity, caring and knowing
what injustices to avoid. However, nothing is said about the consequenc-
es of the embedding of values in technological artifacts, such as – for ex-
ample – the value of sharing on social media platforms such as wikis. The
great limit is that Couldry is not talking about the media ethics – in which
way the media are shaping the values – but about media morality – what
is a good and bad behaviour – and this is an important misunderstanding.
    Couldry’s work is very important for two different reasons.
    The first reason is that it is an attempt to build a social ontology which
refuses both realism and radical constructivism, so that it does not lose
sight of the importance of processes such as the institutionalization that
goes beyond individual practices. In fact, as for cases related to institu-
tionalization, Actor Network Theory as well as a systematic recourse to
Emile Durkheim (1912) are used, despite in the preface a reference to
David Morley and Roger Silverstone works was promised.
    The second reason is related to the fact that the book shows the need
to rethink the centrality of media within social processes, knowing that
today it is impossible to think about social processes detached from the
role of media.
    However, the excessive consideration of mass media – mainly televi-
sion and print – against social media can be considered a limitation of
Couldry’s discourse. The technological component of social media is cer-
tainly not a circumstantial element, so that it is the point on which Sci-
ence and Technology Studies would have a say, especially in relation to
the social component and the link with the values associated with the use
of technology.
    There is also an unexpected value of the book. His constant reference
to the British media culture, television and the internet, makes perfectly
understandable the cultural context in which one of the great recent
technological dystopian television series like Black Mirror (Charlie Book-
er, Channel 4, 2011-2014) was conceived.
    Despite the mentioned limits, which in any case provide relevant
grounds for reflection, it is necessary to underline again the value of the
introduction of this book within the Italian debate. Mainly for two rea-
sons: a) first, methodological ones: the attempt to bring STS and Internet
studies closer to media studies carried out by Couldry has the merit to
create a dialogue among different research traditions which, although
share a common ground, are now extremely specialized sectors and, ex-
Book Reviews                                                               157
cept for media studies, they also find it hard to get established in Italy; b)
secondly, theoretical ones: contemporary society is heavily constructed al-
so through media, however, often the issue of the ontological status of
communication and of its media technologies does not receive the atten-
tion it deserves, especially in Italy where the reflection on communication
intended as social fact is very much influenced by the reflection on cul-
tural industry.


References
Alexander, J. (2003) The Meaning of Social Life. A Cultural Sociology, Oxford,
   Oxford University Press.
Benkler, Y. (2006) The Wealth of Networks, New Haven, Yale University Press.
Castells, M. (1996) The Rise of the Network Society, Oxford, Blackwell.
Dayan, D. and Katz, E. (1992) Media Events: The Live Broadcasting of History,
   Cambridge, Harvard University Press.
Durkheim, E. (1912) The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, Eng. trans. Oxford,
   Oxford University Press, 2008.
Jenkins, H. (2006) Convergence Culture, New York, New York University Press.




                                        ***


   David Novak and Matt Sakakeeny (eds.)
Keywords in Sound, Durham, Duke University Press, 2015, pp. 272

Trevor Pinch, Cornell University

    Sound studies is a newly emergent interdisciplinary field. Keywords in
Sound is an attempt to address some of the foundational debates underly-
ing sound studies as well as provide thought-provoking essays on differ-
ent topics to do with sound. The theme if anything is anthropological: to
capture sound in its multifaceted nature globally and historically and to
get away from and challenge the rather narrow conception and examples
of sound prevalent in the standard Western canon. This is a promising
approach. Even an entry on a staid topic like “the Body” is given new
resonance through Deborah Kapchan’s essay which describes a sufi sing-
er in North Morocco and how she experiences her sounding body. In this
rendition sound becomes part of a new turn to ontology. The ontological
turn and posthumanism indeed provide the sounding boards for many
