Mediated Public Connection: Broad Dynamics

Abstract

We have introduced the term‘public connection’ to capture a dimension of daily life: that is, an orientation towards a public world beyond matters of purely private concern. We talk of ‘mediated public connection’ where that orientation is sustained principally by our practice of consuming media. We wanted to track evidence of public connection across the huge range of diarists’ language (both accounts of daily practice and direct or indirect evidence of that practice). ‘Mediated public connection’ is a complex practice, involving at least two dynamic components: media consumption and public orientation. How in particular cases these components are articulated together must vary: we cannot expect to find a single ‘ideal type’ of mediated public connection. Tracking the resulting varieties of mediated public connection was a key part of our research.