The Ritual Functioning of Online Media

Dear Colleagues,

The ritual functioning of communication and media, as a theoretical framework, has been present in media studies since the 1980s. This approach is also mentioned as a counterpoint to transmission models and as a culturalist–anthropological turn in media studies, following Carey's work. In this model, communication and media focus not primarily on the transmission of information, but on the construction of culture and meaning. The ritual model emphasizes that media technology is culturally embedded. This perspective is also carried by Dayan-Katz's volume Media Events, which focuses on the medium of television and explores the community-building power inherent in the live broadcast of historically significant events. Couldry connects the issue of ritual and power by focusing on legitimacy, since ritual action is particularly suitable for reinforcing and communicating widely held values.

In defining media rituals, we rely on Couldry's definition, according to which "media rituals" are activities that are organized around the media that play a central role in society. They are associated with categories and boundary-setting mechanisms that reinforce and legitimize the underlying value. Through media rituals, we play out, demonstrate, and even naturalize the myth of the central role of the media in society. The term "media rituals" encompasses a huge number of things: from certain "ritualized" forms of television viewing to people's speech, from media appearances to online broadcasts of historical events. Our "automatic" heightened attention is triggered when we are told that a media celebrity has entered the room.

The ritual functioning of media can be observed in network communication and social media sites, both in terms of content and usage. At the same time, we must take into account that technological change has transformed the nature of human interest, cultural practices and the nature of the audience. In this new media environment, media ecosystem, the ritual functioning of media must be explored and analytically described.

The aim of this Special Issue is not only to show how offline rituals can be mediatized, but also how original online media rituals are created and how the network organization of social media, deep mediatization and platformization affect the ritual functioning of network media.

The Special Issue will examine several aspects of the phenomenon:

- Online global media rituals and the construction of values;
- The role of media ritual functioning in mediatized memory;
- Media rituals as tools for showing conflict;
- Media events in social media;
- The role of media ritual functioning in receiver emotion management;
- Receiver rituals of online media use;
- Typology of online media rituals.

References:

Carey, James W. : 2009 Communication as Culture. Essays on Media and Society. Revised edition New York – London, Routledge

Carey, James: 1998 Political Ritual on Television: Episodes in the History of Shame, Degradation and Excommunication. In.: Curran, James – Liebes, Tamar (eds): Media, Ritual and Identity. London – New York, Routledge pp. 42-70.

Carey, James, W.: 1997 The Culture in Question. In.: Stryker Munson, Eve – Warren, Catherine A. (ed.): James Carey. A Critical Reader. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis. 308-341

Coman, Mihai: Cultural Anthropology and Mass Media. A Processual Approach. In.: Rothenbuhler, Eric W. – Coman Mihai (eds.): 2005 Media Anthropology. Thousand Oaks London, New Delhi, Sage Publications pp. 46-55.

Couldry, Nick: 2012 Media, Society, World. Social Theory and Digital Media Practice. Cambridge,  Polity Press

Couldry, Nick: 2003 Media Rituals. A Critical Approach. London and New York: Routledge Francis and Taylor Group

Couldry, Nick – Hepp, Andreas – Krotz, Friedrich (eds.): 2010 Media Events in a Global Age. London – New York, Routledge Taylor and Francis Group

Couldry, Nick – Hepp, Andreas: The Mediated Construction of Reality. Cambridge, Polity, 2017

Cui, X. I. (2019). Mediatized rituals: Understanding the media in the age of deep mediatization. International Journal of Communication, 13, 14.

Dayan, Daniel – Katz, Elihu: 1992 Media Events: The Live Broadcasting of History. Cambridge, Massachusetts, London England, Harvard University Press

Hepp Andreas: Deep Mediatization. London, Francis and Taylor, 2020,

Rothenbuhler, Eric W.: 2006 Communication as Ritual. In.: Shepherd, Gregory J. – St. John, Jeffrey – Striphas, Ted: Communication as … Perspectives on Theory 2006 Thousand Oaks – London – New Delhi: Sage Publications. pp. 13-21.

Rothenbuhler, Eric W. – Coman Mihai (eds.): 2005 Media Anthropology. Thousand Oaks London, New Delhi, Sage Publications

Trillò, Tommaso; Hallinan, Blake; Shifman, Limor. A typology of social media rituals. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 2022, 27.4: zmac011.

van Dijck, Jose – Thomas Poell – Martijn de Waal: The Platform Society. Public Values in a Connective World. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2018.

Dr. Mónika Andok
Dr. Réka Andrea Sárközy
Dr. Tímea H. Tomesz
Guest Editors

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• cultural practices
• deep mediatization
• global media rituals
• media anthropology
• media events
• media rituals
• platformization
• ritual model of communication