300735 Practice Theory Approaches in Analysing Digital Transformation of Societies (S) (SoSe 2025)

Practice theory is a heuristic approach concerned with overcoming traditional dichotomies that persist in social theory. The site of the social for practice theory lies on the level of human activity, practices. By focusing on practices instead of individuals or structure, practice theory offers a relational and heterogeneous perspective on the social. These human activities occur within a network of human bodies, things and artefacts. The usage of things and artefacts is essential for practices to occur. But how they are handled requires tacit knowledge. They act as resources only when they are used with an understanding, know-how within the parameters of cultural codes. Theodor Schatzki formulates this network as “nexus of routinized doings and sayings, held together by shared implicit knowledge and by cultural schemes that pre-consciously execute the work of classification, thus enabling, constraining possible activities” (Schatzki, 1996: 89).

Studying media and the digitalization of society through media-related practice has long been a leading approach in media studies. The conceptual foundations of practice theory have given rise to different strands of media practice thinking. The media practice approach includes any analytical perspective employing practice theory to understand the relationships between media technologies, human actors, and everyday life. In this seminar we will analyze everyday digital practices, addressing the pervasive nature of digital media technologies in all areas of life through the lens of practice theory.

The first part of the seminar will examine various practice theory perspectives found in the highly diverse writings of philosophers and sociologists, paying particular attention to the elements of practices, namely, the bodily-mental activities, materials, meanings and skills/forms of competence. In the second part of the seminar, we will read and discuss empirical studies of digital cultures and social media that use practice theory as an analytical framework. The kinds of questions that will guide us in our readings and discussions are: How is social media content as practice shaped by the interplay of human bodies, the practical meanings, cultural codes surrounding them, and the affordances of media technologies? In what way can we think of social media content as routines? How can we conceptualize the algorithmic affordances of social media platforms within a practice theory approach?