Communicative Figurations: Towards a New Paradigm for the Media Age?

This chapter discusses the theoretical contributions made in this volume, asking three questions. First, does the figurational approach introduced here allow us to see things that we previously did not? Secondly, how does the new figurational approach relate to the figurational approach as developed by Elias and his followers? Thirdly, is this the beginning of a new paradigm that bridges media and social theory? The chapter concludes that the ‘communicative figurations’ approach shows great promise as this paradigm successfully integrates media studies and social theory. It coins a number of useful concepts, and provides a coherent methodological framework. Compared with current figurational approaches in sociology, its theorization of power is rather weak; but the notions of mediation, frames of relevance and nested figurations are important innovations.