Practice approaches to media research: antecedents, current concerns and future directions

The concept of media practices – and, more broadly, an understanding of media as practice (Couldry) – has become increasingly popular as a framework for researching media use. By situating media practices in relation to broader social practices and relationships, the media practice framework offers a more holistic perspective than previous approaches focused on audiences’ engagement with particular media texts or technologies.

This talk will provide an overview of key tenets of practice approaches to media research. Hilde will situate the recent ‘turn’ to practice in Anglo-European media studies within a broader historical context by identifying its roots in diverse traditions, including Latin American communication theory, and discuss the contribution of practice theory (as developed within the social sciences) to media studies. With a specific focus on citizen and activist media, she will outline some of the key concerns in current practice-focused media research, reflect on some of the challenges facing this field and delineate some possible directions for the future.

The seminar is hosted by the research group Media use and audience studies. The talk is open for everyone.

Hilde C. Stephansen is Lecturer in Sociology in the School of Social Sciences at the University of Westminster, London, and currently a guest researcher in the Department of Information Science and Media Studies at the University of Bergen. Her research is situated at the intersection of political sociology and media and communication studies, and focuses on social movements, citizen and alternative media, media practices and the public sphere. She is the author of Global Media Activism (Routledge, 2020) and the co-editor of Citizen Media and Practice (Routledge, 2019), and her work has been widely published in international journals.