Relational Communication Spaces: Infrastructures and Discursive Practices

[摘要] Digital communication technologies, social web platforms, and mobile communication have fundamentally altered theway we communicate publicly. They have also changed our perception of space, thus making a re‐calibration of a spatialperspective on public communication necessary. We argue that such a new perspective must consider the relational logicof public communication, which stands in stark contrast to the plain territorial notion of space common in communica‐tion research. Conceptualising the spatiality of public communication, we draw on Löw’s (2016) sociology of space. Herrelational concept of space encourages us to pay more attention to (a) the infrastructural basis of communication, (b) theoperations of synthesising the relational communication space through discursive practices, and (c) power relations thatdetermine the accessibility of public communication. Thus, focusing on infrastructures and discursive practices means high‐lighting crucial socio‐material preconditions of public communication and considering the effects of the power relationswhich are inherent in their spatialisation upon the inclusivity of public communication. This new approach serves a dualpurpose: Firstly, it works as an analytical perspective to systematically account for the spatiality of public communication.Secondly, the differentiation between infrastructural spaces and spaces of discursive practices adds explanatory value tothe perspective of relational communication spaces.

[学科分类] 医学（综合）

[关键词] discursive practices;inclusion;infrastructures;methodological nationalism;networks;public communication;sociology ofspace;territory