Material/Symbolic

The dichotomy between the material and the symbolic is introduced by delving into the format war for video cassettes, between Betamax and VHS, which had a distinct material dimension, but also a symbolic one. When thinking about the materiality of media and communication it is important to focus on infrastructures and how these are quintessential to make communication possible and also to distribute and transmit media content. Through the materiality of devices and technologies that run on these infrastructures, a whole range of actions and practices are made possible. In this regard, affordance theory helps us understand the complex relationship between us as agentic subjects and the material objects that surround us. Subsequently, attention shifts to the symbolic and especially the role of the symbolic in the construction of meaning and the war of position as well as the idea of symbolic power, which is tied to other forms of power, but also provides the opportunity to resist. Framing and discourse theory are two paradigms which seek to explain and expose how symbolic power not just reflects the world but also shapes it, represents it in an unavoidably biased manner but is at the same time also contingent and offers the possibility of resistance and transformation; not only forward from a normative perspective, but also potentially backwards.