Page 96 - Consuming Media

01Consuming Media 10/4/07 11:17 am Page 83

of media and their significance as cultural artefacts means that people consume media
through the images of media. This form of media consumption includes media as
symbolic representations, or pictures of media, and also media in use; that is, the
media practices that we see around us. Because of media’s visibility and the centrality
of media in our lives, we use the images in and of media to make judgements about
media products and technologies themselves, what they look like and how they are
used. For example, Ericsson is said to have lost an important segment of its cellular
phone market when its new models had less visual appeal than Nokia’s. Images of
media use can also give rise to cultural stereotypes; for example, when Europeans
observe the ways tourists from Asian countries use their cameras on their city tours.
Mediated images of media exemplify what might be called ‘media reflexivity’,
where media mirror themselves (or other media). Just like other forms of reflexivity,
media reflexivity seems to increase in late modernity. In fact, the various forms of
reflexivity are closely interrelated. For instance, individual self-reflexivity uses
reflexive media as a tool for personal self-thematization, scientific reflexivity in
academic research interacts with reflexive forms of mediated communication, and
mediatization is a key factor in the whole institutional reflexivity of society at large
through which societal structures increasingly deal with problems they have them-
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selves created. Media reflexivity is also closely related to the notion of ‘hyperme-
diacy’, the intense attention to the tools of mediation that counteracts the
transparency of mediation and makes people highly aware of the mediating apparatus
as such. 4
The distinctions drawn in Chapter 2 among three levels of symbolic communica-
tion can be applied also to image consumption. Here, the material base is the image
itself, with its symbolic form and content. The technological level of these media
includes the apparatuses that are used to create and distribute these symbolic forms
as visual artefacts. At the third level of social institutions, institutionally anchored sets
of norms and rules guide and regulate the visual performance of media and their use,
governing both images in and images of media. Images proliferated throughout the
shopping centre, in all sizes, shapes and formats. Media were also highly visible, both
as pictures and being used by shoppers. And finally, through the research group’s
investigations of media consumption, we learned a great deal about the cultural,
social and institutional rules that shape how media are used, including the visual
performance of media in the shopping centre.
Material from two case studies in the centre illustrates the cultural, social and insti-
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tutional rules and the individual choices that shape image use. The case studies take
as their point of departure the two photographic shops, and a card and poster shop
located in the shopping centre. All three of these businesses are franchises, belonging
to national and international chains, and use media in all forms of their advertising.
The content of the images available in these shops draws heavily from the mass
media, pointing at intermediality as a key feature.
The chapter begins with a discussion of the mall as an environment of visual display,
itself a medium if you will. The concept of display can be helpful in investigating how

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