Mediatization, Community, Narrative

For the individual gathering information around the world of narratives mediated by new communication technologies and builds his relationships, the boundaries of individual social contexts fade into symbolic ones. The roles he plays in different communities mutually affect his self-image, his individuality, and his attachment to each community. The concept of community of the person who communicates electronically, who often receives and mediates the narratives of the mass media as elements of his personal stories, is born at the junction of the conceptual representation of different community forms, nourished by numerous physical and virtual community experiences. Reflecting on the sociological, psychological and communication theoretical discussions related to the topic, in my study I want to highlight, on the one hand, by reviewing the relevant literature, how the interweaving of personal, community, social and mass communication narratives conveyed in the framework of electronically mediated communication contributes to the development of a new concept of community and society, and makes it more than ever before more complex, but at the same time more conscious of our community and social roles linked to our communication processes. On the other hand, in this essay I consider the question of how the narratives conveyed by the new media contribute to the formation of a special, relational self and a malleable identity based on it in the case of regular media consumers.

Released: Replika 127, 115–130.
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