The Architectures of Media Power: Editing, the Newsroom, and Urban Public Space

Excerpt: The below analyses identify viewpoints of the Actor-Network Theory (ANT) whilst considering its spatio-temporality within the context of three research papers. The highly influential nature of media, automobility and clothing in spatio-temporal societal contexts is key to understanding how actions as well as objects shape and change our environments, behaviours, moralities and ethics (Latour, 1991); that there is a Design to intangible forms as well as tangible forms such as objects. This is crucial to understanding holistically what is around us and the differing complexities that are responsible for shifting our realities, public issues and the way we understand and can therefore intercept them as disruptive problem solvers through Design.

‘Inhabiting the Car’ by John Urry (2006) focuses on the car as one of, if not the major player when defining the design of contemporary cities. Urry notes that sociologists before him have rarely identified the car as anything more than supporting notions of speed in urbanisation (2006, p. 17). Urry presents six ways automobility supports a ‘specific character of domination’, which he uses to form his arguments (2006, p.p. 17-18).

A key concept when engaging with ANT is considering Urry’s ‘quasi-private’ (2006, p. 18) space inside the car, and the public space outside the car as two forms of spatio-temporality shifts. Urry’s paper is written in 2006, so the definitions he discusses are of the time we are in. But if we were to consider the car in a different time and place, the ANT viewpoints would be quite different. We could ask ourselves: What advancements has the car made over time and have these changes been intermediaries or mediators? Have these modifications disrupted the role of this object and its effect on recruiting differing aspects of human behavior?

The juxtaposition of intermediaries and mediators is truly aided by the ANT diagram. Spatio-temporal comparisons almost act as an equation in identifying what the role of Design has been, is and can be in the future; how Design can renegotiate.

‘Patched, Louse-ridden, Tattered: Clean and Dirty Clothes’ by Ingun Grimstad Klepp (2007) analyses the intersection between the cleanliness of clothing and clothing and it’s habits (Klepp 2007, p. 255). Klepp states there are absolute norms associated with clean and dirty clothing and that there are contributing factors to the way in which we accept and understand them (Klepp 2007, p. 255).

Considering Klepp’s argument via the ANT diagram, key factors are identified. In ways it appears obvious that clothing represents societal factors such as class, beliefs and regulations but a hybrid discussion with cleanliness could be refreshing and relevant when discussing ideas of mortality and what we consider acceptable in our cultures. Bruno Latour addressed this idea of the power of objects and their inscriptions in his essay, ‘Nous n’avons jamais été modernes: essai d’anthropologie symétrique’ (1991): ‘By so doing, they play an important role in mediating human relationships, even prescribing morality, ethics and politics.’ The link between uncleanliness and mortality is pertinent when considering clothing as a Designed object with inscriptions. Perhaps uncleanliness in clothing is a moral deficiency altering the behavioural habits of humans that intercept it i.e.: smell has distributed agency; the inscriptions within smell address a powerful notion of mortality because it so strongly opposes the equally strong cultural norm of cleanliness.

The third paper I will discuss is ‘The Architectures of Media Power: Editing, the Newsroom, and Urban Public Space’ by Scott Rodgers (2014). Rodgers analyses the Newsroom (production space) and public space (mediated publics) through the vehicle of media forms. He argues that media gets ‘“built into” the urban experience’ beginning in the newsroom (Rodgers 2014, p. 69).

Rodgers paper discusses the architecture of the practices that occur in the newsroom as reflections of the architectures that transpire outside the newsroom, with the former defining the latter. (Rodgers 2014, p. 69). He discusses ‘publicness’ and the way it is shaped through discussions of the television series, ‘The Wire’ and the publication, ‘Toronto Star’. ‘The Wire’ aptly captures the ‘relationships between situated institutional or social settings and urban life more generally’ (Rodgers 2014, p. 70).

As Rodgers (2014, p. 71) quotes Iveson (2007, pp. 32-47), ‘urban spaces are venues for activities regarded as public, as well as becoming objects of public concern – that ‘the city’ can stand in for ‘the public’ as a social entity’. Of interest here is whether each aspect to ‘the city’ requires a deconstruction in its own right or whether further analysis is needed to understand the differences and how ANT could be used in achieving this. The most pertinent aspect of Rodgers paper is the relationship between media forms in their creation and media forms as they shape our publicness.

The highly influential nature of media, automobility and clothing in spatio-temporal societal contexts is key to understanding how actions as well as objects shape and change our environments, behaviours, moralities and ethics (Latour, 1991); that there is a Design to intangible forms as well as tangible forms such as objects. This is crucial to understanding holistically what is around us and the differing complexities that are responsible for shifting our realities, public issues and the way we understand and can therefore intercept them as disruptive problem solvers through Design.

References

Iveson, K. (2007). Publics and the city. Oxford, England: Blackwell.

Klepp, Ingun Grimstad. 2007. Patched, Louse-ridden, Tattered: Clean and Dirty Clothes. London: Bloomsbury Journals.

Latour, Bruno. 1991. Nous n’avons jamais été modernes: essai d’anthropologie symétrique. Paris: La Découverte.

Rodgers, Scott. 2014. The Architectures of Media Power: Editing, the Newsroom, and Urban Public Space. Birkbeck, University of London, London, UK.

Urry, John. 2006. Inhabiting the Car. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

Image source: http://www.newspaperalum.com/2013/02/