Abstract
Media have visibly altered various aspects of the everyday life-world. On the one hand, today’s life-worlds are pervaded and imbued with media and their use; media, that is to say, change the world within our reach. On the other hand, media also dislocate the boundaries of the life-world. They alter the temporal and spatial range of its inhabitants, allowing humans to cross the borders of their life-worlds. In a broad sense media are so fundamental to human communication that we can speak of deeply embedded media structures of the life-world. They connect social actors, allowing communication across time and space. But they also separate humans from another, creating finite provinces of meaning. The paper discusses the media structures of the life-world and the everydayness of media and media appropriation.
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Notes
- 1.
This citation comes from Schutz’s lecture on the sociology of language at the New School of Social Research in 1952/1953. The lecture notes, taken by Helmut R. Wagner and Fred Kersten in English, are (slightly edited) published in German language in the ongoing (new) edition of Alfred Schutz’s Completed Works (Alfred Schütz Werkausgabe) at the Constance University Press (Schutz 2003: 221–299). The quote is our retranslation of the German passage, based on the original (English) notes of Wagner and Kersten. The notes are held in the Sozialwissenschaftliches Archiv at the University of Constance.
- 2.
It was eventually another immigrant from Austria who, in his new home country, largely devoted himself to the role of the mass media: Paul F. Lazarsfeld.
- 3.
The caption of the image in Földes-Papp reads “‘booking tablet’ (clay) from Uruk IV, one of the oldest written records (around 3200 B.C.). The front shows personal names with quantities of goods (cattle). The summation of goods on the back is – except for the numerical values – purely pictographic and can therefore be read even without knowledge of the Sumerian language: ‘54 bulls and cows’.” (Földes-Papp 1987: 51; our translation)
- 4.
Cf. Bolus (2008).
- 5.
The hypothesis of the polygenesis of writing systems applies to the following areas “in order of origination: southeast Europe (Ancient Europe) – Egypt – Mesopotamia – Indus River Valley – China (Ancient China) – Middle America (the Olmec culture)” (Haarmann 2002: 34f.; our translation).
- 6.
The printing process of the Gutenberg Bible began in 1452 and resulted in 180 copies with 1,282 pages. Of this so-called 42-Line Bible 140 copies were printed on paper, 40 on parchment. 48 copies remain worldwide.
- 7.
In truth, the FIFA World Cup 1954 was chiefly followed on the radio. Herbert Zimmermann’s famous German coverage of the World Cup final 1954 became the stuff of legends simply because millions were listening to it on the radio. In his narrative, “Der Sonntag, an dem ich Weltmeister wurde (The Sunday I Became World Champion),” F.C. Delius shapes the event in a literary fashion. The narrative is a tribute to this unparalleled reception, this act of ‘only’ hearing that it is raining, that no one is staggering in Wankdorf Stadium, that Rahn should shoot from deep. Zimmermann’s German commentary “Sechs Minuten noch im Wankdorf-Stadion in Bern. Keiner wankt. Der Regen prasselt unaufhörlich hernieder. […] Aus dem Hintergrund müsste Rahn schießen! Rahn schießt!” translates into “Six minutes to go here at Wankdorf Stadium in Bern. No one is staggering. The rain is beating down relentlessly. […] Rahn should shoot from deep! Rahn shoots!” The ecstatic, dramatic narration and the importance of the acoustic backdrop are quintessential features of the live radio broadcast.
- 8.
Schutz on making music: “The beholder, thus, is united with the composer by a time dimension common to both, which is nothing other than a derived form of the vivid present shared by the partners in a genuine face-to-face relation […].” (Schutz 1964b: 171f.)
- 9.
It is not for nothing that the radio was the focal point of the emerging field of media sociology, a tradition forgotten later due to the emergence of communication research. In the United States, under the direction of Lazarsfeld and Merton, early radio research was developed at the “Office of Radio Research.” Cf. the early examinations of the radio: Lazarsfeld and Stanton (1942, 1944).
- 10.
- 11.
Ling (2004: 140) on the basis of Goffman.
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Ayaß, R. (2014). Media Structures of the Life-World. In: Staudigl, M., Berguno, G. (eds) Schutzian Phenomenology and Hermeneutic Traditions. Contributions to Phenomenology, vol 68. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6034-9_7
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