The Mediated Construction of Reality

"This book by Couldry and Hepp might well become a new classic in the theory of the social, on par with Elias and Latour. Theorizing the mediated construction of reality, the authors sketch the new contours of 'a space where order is at stake.' Mandatory reading for everyone who seriously reflects on the implications of contemporary media systems and practices on society." Jose van Dijck, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands "A profound and illuminating attempt to bring core traditions of social theory into the study of media in the digital age. An excellent and pathbreaking book." Anthony Giddens, member of the House of Lords, former director of the London School of Economics and Political Science "In this wide-ranging, ambitious volume, Couldry and Hepp revisit Berger & Luckmann's classic work on social construction. Their theory of "deep mediatization" resituates digital media systems and networked "figurations" of communicative action as interdependent, constitutive phenomena in contemporary sociality and social worlds. Mediated Construction is an indispensable contribution to social theory in communication research and media sociology." Leah Lievrouw, University of California, Los Angeles "This is not a book about media, but a book about the world shaped by media. And it is not just about that empirical reality, but about how to understand it. Couldry and Hepp develop insights from phenomenology and integrate these with critical theory in an exciting combination." Craig Calhoun, London School of Economics and Political Science " The Mediated Construction of Reality is simply an important book for sociology and for media and communication studies alike maybe as important as The Social Construction of Reality became half a century ago." Soziopolis

Nick Couldry is Professor of Media, Communications and Social Theory at the London School of Economics and Political Science Andreas Hepp is Professor of Communication and Media Studies at the Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research (ZeMKI), University of Bremen.

Contents Acknowledgements Chapter 1: Introduction Part I: Constructing the Social World Chapter 2: The Social World as Communicative Construction Chapter 3: History as Waves of Mediatization Chapter 4: How We Live With Media Part II: Dimensions of the Social World Chapter 5: Space Chapter 6: Time Chapter 7: Data Part III: Agency in the Social World Chapter 8: Self Chapter 9: Collectivities Chapter 10: Order Chapter 11: Conclusion Notes References Index