Ambivalent rituals of belonging: (Re)theorising hybrid, violent media events

Abstract

The updating of media event theory for the digital age has been underway for some time, and several researchers have pointed out that the complexity of the hybrid media environment poses a challenge when it comes to understanding how media events in the present digital context ritually create belonging. In this article, we examine violent media events as hybrid phenomena and discuss their ritual workings in the present digital media environment. We apply what we call the 5 A’s – actors, affordances, attention, affect, and acceleration – as key analytical tools to empirically study such events. We also develop the concept of hybridity in relation to media events by proposing three auxiliary A’s: assemblage, amplification, and accumulation. Building on our earlier work, we call for more analytical consideration of the ambivalences in the ritual constructions of belonging (and non-belonging) in such violent events. We use the Christchurch massacre of 2019 as a case study to illustrate these conceptual developments.

Rethinking affective publics as media rituals through temporality, performativity and liminality

“…Indeed, these digital footprints go well beyond merely reflecting on the gravity of media events. They are active engagements with the media ritual, rendered possible by the affordances of networked media platforms (Rathnayake, 2021; Valaskivi et al, 2022). That is to say, the eventness of media rituals is collaboratively created and amplified by means of the users’ communicative practices (Frosh and Pinchevski, 2018).…”

“…Repeated uses of posting, sharing and liking content aggregate into affect-driven rhythms of publics. Specific contents in visual, aural or textual forms acquire affective value to the extent that they incite a heightened amount of activity (Valaskivi et al, 2022). As Papacharissi (2016: 317) says in her analysis of the Egyptian uprising, rhythms take ‘the form of a nod, a clap, a nudge, and other forms of affective expression’.…”

“…As Dayan (2010) suggests, ritualised media events also provide visual proximity and shared temporality that helps in constructing a 'we'. Ritual actions are thus not only meaningmaking practices that draw on the symbolic boundaries of collective identities but also cultivate a sense of togetherness and belonging (Orlova, 2016;Valaskivi et al, 2022). In Dayan and Katz's (1992: 112) account, the unity of time and action set the scene for a ritual expression that 'creates a feeling of togetherness, of one-bodiness'.…”

“…In what follows, I first revisit theories of media rituals that are mostly related to television genres (Couldry, 2003; Dayan and Katz, 1992), but somehow remain relevant in this age of networked media (see Brügger, 2022; Frosh and Pinchevski, 2018; Rathnayake, 2021; Valaskivi et al, 2022). Following this, considering three key terms (temporality, performativity, and liminality), I illustrate networked media rituals that enable the processual formation of affective publics.…”