CNM welcomes Assoc Prof Gu Jie, from the School of Television, Faculty of Journalism and Communication, Communication University of China. He received his PhD in New Media Studies from the Australian National University in 2012. His research interests include media practice, audience studies and political communication and his teaching areas are Digital Journalism, Television Production & Photography. Gu Jie will be with us until end July 2016.
He will be giving a talk on Wednesday, 27 Mar 2016, 3 pm at the CNM Meeting Room. The synopsis of his talk is given below.
Talk Synopsis:
For the past decade, a practice turn has been witnessed in quite a few research disciplines, such as sociological consumption studies, organization studies and science and technology studies. In 2004, Nick Couldry first brought practice theories to media studies and formally argued that media should be also theorized as practice. However, practice theories have appeared in relatively few studies of media and communication. Moreover, I suggest that most existing practice-based media studies are still conducted under the purview of methodological dualism without manifesting the essence of duality of practice theories. To explicate this suggestion, I first review the development and rationale of practice theories. Especially, the focus is laid on the second generation of practice theories, which is pioneered by Theodore Schatzki. Compared to the first generation of practice theorists, like Bourdieu and Giddens, Schatzki’s ensemble practice approach offers a better solution for bridging the gap between methodological individualism and wholism. More importantly, this approach entails a set of concepts and parameters which operate at a relatively low level of abstraction. Second, by referring to the merits of existing practice-based studies, and also incorporating the insights generated from my own study of YouTubing practice in the context of Australia, I extend existing practice-based studies by detailing a research script of with more emphasis on individual side of social practices. In the final section, I further develop my contention that the field of media and communication is a fruitful one for the development of practice theories, and that practice theories are useful for media scholars, especially with research interests in motivation, usage pattern and media institution.
