Intimate media and technological nature of sociality

Abstract

The article argues for the audience studies, which draws on the analysis of artifactual, spatial, temporal, and sensorial aspects of media consumption and builds on, that is, the so-called medium theory and theory of practice in sociology. In the second part of the article, we interpret the results of a qualitative empirical study regarding the daily use of media technology among young people, aged between 19 and 29 years. The study finds that circumstances, under which digital media have colonized all spheres of public life and under which online social life has become completely naturalized, have led to constant online connectivity as well as highly fragmented and dispersed communication practices of users moving between different media. The analysis of media consumption diaries points to radical mediatization, which plays an important role in the changing generational structure of feeling.