in the receiver position before he or she can send anything.... Human communication
is never one-way. Always, it not only calls for response but is shaped in its very form
and content by anticipated response’ (176).
15 On the positive side are: investigative journalism, whistle-blowing, law enforcement,
self-help, personal privacy protection, avoiding persecution (113–14). The negative
includes: spamming, deception, hate mail, impersonation and misrepresentation,
on-line financial fraud, numerous illegal activities (115–16).
16 These forms of communion may have positive and negative functions: they might
enable a shared sense of belonging whilst also masking inequalities and conflicts within
the social order.
17 ‘To the extent that “everything works as if” there were a functioning social whole, media and
media rituals are central to that construction – which is why we need to study them’ (10).
18 Thus Couldry wishes to reject theorists who argue in a limited or general sense that
media rituals are extensions of other forms of everyday ritual. For an instance of the
latter, and a comparative analysis of rites, ceremonies and media ritual, see Rothenbuhler
(1998).
19 However, Couldry’s book makes little attempt to theorize the relationship between
mass media rituals and New Media rituals.
20 Couldry enlists the work of Italian political theorist Albert Melucci for this notion, but he
could just as easily employ Slavoj Z
∨
iz∨ek’s work in The Sublime Object of Ideology (1989).
21 For Couldry, the ‘ritual’ is not an activity, but marks an entire sphere of integration (2).
22 Significantly, Calhoun says, such tertiary relationships might involve ordinary written
communication; they ‘need not involve electronic technology, though such technology
now greatly enhances the reach and the efficacy of such systems’ (332).
23 Calhoun’s tertiary and quaternary levels are dealt with in most CMC literature in terms
of use/abuse, ‘impact analysis’ or within the sociology of technology in terms of a
positive and negative effects debate (see, e.g., Spears and Lea, 1994).
24 A major work which configures such primary relations as a level of sociation is Bott
(1971).
25 ‘Certainly, they think, a world dominated by relationships conducted over the phone,
by correspondence, or with the assistance of computer would be much worse’ (Calhoun,
1986: 335).
26 Sharp distinguishes between social form and societal form. Social forms are modes of
integration that feature identifiable bases of community, virtual, extended, face-to-face,
whereas a societal form refers to an actually existing historical ‘configuration’ of the
different levels and components of social integration and their institutions (see Sharp,
1993: 225).
27 Slevin’s caveat is as follows:It must be remembered, however, that the internet cannot be approached as a
single communication entity. ... It consists of an array of different technical appli-
cations. A more detailed study would involve the examination of various internet
applications, for example WWW, e-mail, IRC etc. and the unique way in which they
combine Thompson’s ‘attributed of technical media’. (62–3)166 COMMUNICATION THEORYHolmes-05.qxd 2/15/2005 1:00 PM Page 166