Communication Theory Media, Technology and Society

interaction which Thompson specifies has brought about new social fields

and changes to the nature of work, public/private divisions and leisure

time.

But it has, most significantly, brought about new modes of social inte-

gration. In order to explain this we need to formalize the distinction

between interaction and integration. Whereas interaction involves the

empirical act of engaging in a speech act, either extended or in mutual

presence, social integration is made possible by some or other form of

reciprocity, via interdependence, long-term continuity of association and

strong identification with an other – even an abstract other.

The claim here is that reciprocity can still occur without direct inter-

action. In fact it is possible to see how most reciprocity involves little direct

interaction at all, but rather is embedded in numerous kinds of rituals

which solidarize certain kinds of communion which may not be empiri-

cally obvious.^16 From a sociological point of view, these rituals need not

involve restoring co-presence at all; rather, they may be oriented towards

quite abstract forms of association – but association nevertheless.

Social integration through ritual

A recent important book which can help us see how reciprocity in media

sociality can and does occur without any form of interaction is Nick

Couldry’s Media Rituals: A Critical Approach (2003). I am in complete

agreement with Couldry’s claim that ‘[w]e cannot analyse the social

impacts of contemporary media without taking a position on broader

social theory’ (3). And Couldry takes as the indispensable starting point

for such a position a radicalized reassessment of Durkheimian thought on

social integration.

As Durkheim allows us to ask: ‘how, if at all, do societies cohere, how

is it that they are experienced by their members as societies?’ (Couldry,

2003: 6).^17 Couldry follows Durkheim in suggesting that even modern,

complex media societies exhibit principles of coherence that can be under-

stood through the study of rituals. Three senses of ritual are distin-

guished: ritual as habitual action, ritual as formalized action, and ritual

as action that is associated with transcendental values. It is this latter form

of ritual which has the most bearing on the role of media in social inte-

gration. For Couldry, media represent a ‘wider space of ritualization’

which has a range of transcendental functions beyond individual habits

of media consumption. Moreover, the portrayal of ‘already existing ritual

action’ such as the televising of a religious event fails completely to illus-

trate what he wants to capture in the notion of media ritual.^18

For Couldry, media rituals occur within psychological and spatial

boundaries in which it is possible for strangers to interact in symbolically

unequal yet naturalized ways in which they experience a shared set

of values. For example, in a description similar to Horton and Wohl’s

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