Media From a Practice Theory Perspective

This chapter applies the conceptual principles of practice theory to media and communication research, emphasizing that media are not fixed structures or mere tools but dynamic ensembles of practices. This approach reframes the study of media away from deterministic models of effects or production toward understanding what people do in relation to media and how media are enacted through practice. The chapter posits that media constitute a “vast domain of practices,” encompassing creation, dissemination, and appropriation. Practices become the primary units of analysis like editorial routines, audience interactions, or infrastructural maintenance rather than abstract entities like “the media” or “the audience.” With that, researchers can better grasp how media are interwoven with everyday life and continually reconstituted through human and material activity. The chapter explores media across four interconnected dimensions: media as technologies and infrastructures, that is, the material affordances that emerge from the reciprocal shaping of tools and user behavior; media as discourse with a focus on how meaning-making and sociotechnical imaginaries are produced and maintained through communicative acts and power-laden narratives; media as institutions that analyzes how rules, norms, and shared meanings structure social practices, while remaining dynamic and open to change through everyday enactment; and media as organizations that are constituted by communication and ongoing organizing.