Michele Rosenthal | Independent Scholar (original) (raw)

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Papers by Michele Rosenthal

In contemporary society media ubiquity and convergence have transformed the act of turning "... more In contemporary society media ubiquity and convergence have transformed the act of turning "off" from a routine unmarked moment into a conscious effort and a personal statement. Use and non-use of specific media are increasingly self-reflective and symbolically significant acts. In an ongoing research project we seek to gain insight into this cultural and technological moment by examining individuals and communities who make the effort to remain – to some extent and in relation to some media – "unplugged." We propose that media avoidance is specific to medium, time and place, is constantly negotiated, and needs therefore to be conceived in terms of media ambivalence; and that instead of an identity marker of exclusive ideological groups, media ambivalence is implicated in media ubiquity, technological convergence, and new-liberal ideas about choice. Analytically, we inverse Silverstone at al.'s notion of domestication and outline how de-domestication can high...

Practicing Religion in the Age of the Media, 2002

In the contemporary media-saturated landscape, even small acts of non-use or temporary avoidance ... more In the contemporary media-saturated landscape, even small acts of non-use or temporary avoidance can be understood as expressions of media ambivalence. This paper explores and analyzes technological (i.e., http://macfreedom.com/) and discursive “tactics” (i.e., “screen time”) that users employ to negotiate and limit media use for themselves and their families. Drawing upon qualitative interviews conducted in households in Israel, as well as popular texts in Israel and the U.S. that discuss media “diets” and tactics for “slowing down” (http://slowmedia.typepad.com/), we show how these approaches express ambivalence about the effects of media upon children, family life, or upon the individual’s quality of life. In this context, we ask how moral responsibility for use and non-use is delegated to both human and non-human actants in different cultural and religious environments.

American Protestants and TV in the 1950s, 2007

Oxford Handbooks Online, 2012

Selected Papers of Internet Research, Oct 27, 2013