Social and communication theorists Nick Couldry and Andreas Hepp draw on their recent book "The Mediated Construction of Reality" (Polity 2016) to explore what happens to the concept and practice of 'social order' in the era of datafication. Today we are living in an era not just of mediatization, but deep mediatization where every element of social process and social life is composed of elements that have already been mediated. This shifts the question of media's 'influence' on the social into a higher-dimensional problem. Datafication is a good example of this, and its tension with classical forms of social phenomenology will be discussed in detail in the talk. Developing particularly the social theory of Norbert Elias (and his concept of 'figuration'), Couldry and Hepp explore how social theory can help us grasp the deep conflicts that exist today between our material systems of interdependence (particularly those focussed on information technology and data processing systems) and the normative principles such as freedom and autonomy. Such conflicts as legal theorists such as Julie Cohen note are crucial to the life of democratic subjects and the orders (democratic or not) that they inhabit.

For more info on this event visit:

https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2017/10/CouldryHepp