30.10.

13

Research Approach www.kommunikative-figurationen.de Readability

kommunikative-figurationen.de

ResearchApproach
by Last updated on February 26, 2013 original (http://www.kommunikativefigurationen.de/en/research-approach.html)

The collaborative work of the research network is guided by a shared understanding of communicative figurations. These are defined as exemplary patterns of processes of transmedial communicative interweaving within and by which people articulate their socio-cultural reality and symbolic meaning. As such, communicative figurations are not be seen as static phenomena: They always have a process character. They are instantiated in communicative practice, where they are re-articulated and thus constantly subjected to varying degrees of alteration. In terms of sociological social constructivism, Communicative figurations can be understood as the fundament of the communicative articulation and therefore construction of socio-cultural reality: Various communicative figurations are the means in and by which culture and society are constituted in their dimensions of meaning.

Communicative figurations can be analyzed along four aspects:

www.readability.com/articles/d6ephvlu

1/2

30.10.13

Research Approach www.kommunikative-figurationen.de Readability

First, by their forms of communication (patterns of communicative acts or practices, and subsequently produced communicative networks and discourses). Second, a distinct media ensemble can be perceived for each communicative figuration with regard to these forms of communication. By this we mean the totality of the various media, by or referring to which a communicative figuration is articulated. Third, for each communicative figuration a typical constellation of actors can be identified, who constitute the same by their communicative behavior. Fourth and finally, any communicative figuration is marked by a particular thematic framing, i.e. an action-guiding theme that should be identified as such. In such a description of communicative figurations four analytic perspectives have to be considered: How are belongings produced by a communicative figuration within a sociocultural entity? How are certain rules of a socio-cultural entity created through a communicative figuration? How does a communicative figuration produce characteristic segmentations in respect of a socio-cultural entity? How are particular power relations creative or maintained through a communicative figuration with reference to a socio-cultural entity? Based on such a shared basic understanding of communicative figurations, the research network analyzes their specificity and transformation in mediatized societies and cultures from the perspective of individuals, relationships and sociocultural fields.

OriginalURL: http://www.kommunikative-figurationen.de/en/research-approach.html

www.readability.com/articles/d6ephvlu

2/2