Cover not available

Article published In: Polymedia in Interaction
Edited by Jannis Androutsopoulos
[Pragmatics and Society 12:5] 2021
► pp. 828–849

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
authorization required

Idioms of polymediated practices and the techno-social accomplishment of co-presence in transnational families

 | Dresden University of Technology
Published online: 7 February 2022
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.20053.gre
Abstract
Drawing on data from a comparative ethnographic study on media usage in transnational families, this paper contributes to a reappraisal of polymedia theory. Two main theoretical assumptions are reconsidered. First, it is demonstrated why the equal availability assumption has to be revised in light of the complex interactions between the corporeal, communicative and social mobilities which together constitute transnational migration. Second, it is argued that the techno-socially accomplished co-presence in transnational families depends more on the creative appropriation and combination of different media channels and communication forms than on the choice between them. In order to empirically investigate the specific needs for, and forms of co-presence in families, the concept of ‘registers of presence’ is proposed. It allows us to understand in detail in what ways and in which constellations transnational families create togetherness with the help of communication technologies.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction: Mediatization and the emergence of the ‘transnational family’
  • 2.Researching transnational families as pioneers of mediatization: Data and methods
  • 3.The transnational dynamics of mediatization and the ‘digital divide’
  • 4.The making of togetherness: Creating ‘care-ful’ registers of presence in polymedia environments
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (43)
References
Baldassar, Loretta. 2008. “Missing Kin and Longing to be Together: Emotions and the Construction of Co-presence in Transnational Relationships.” Journal of Intercultural Studies 29 (3): 247–266. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Baldassar, Loretta, and Laura Merla. 2013. Transnational Families, Migration and the Circulation of Care. Understanding the Mobility and Absence in Family Life. New York: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bryceson, Deborah Fahy, and Ulla Vuorela (eds). 2002. The Transnational Family: New European Frontiers and Global Networks. Oxford: Berg.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cabalquinto, Earvin Charles B. 2019. “Digital Ties, Disrupted Togetherness: Locating Uneven Communicative Mobilities in Transnational Family Life.” Migration, Mobility, & Displacement 4(1): 49–63. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cathcart, Robert, and Gary Gumpert. 1986. “The Person-Computer- Interaction: A Unique Source.” In Inter/Media: Interpersonal Communication in a Media World, ed. by Gary Gumpert, and Robert Cathcart, 323–332. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chambers, Deborah. 2013. Social Media and Personal Relationships. Online Intimacies and Networked Friendship. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Da Orden, María L. 2010. Una familia y un oceano de por medio: La emigración Gallega a la Argentina: una historia a través de la memoria epistolary. Barcelona: Anthropos Editorial.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Elliot, Bruce S., David A. Gerber, and Suzanne M. Sinke (eds). 2006. Letters Across Borders. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fitzgerald, Patrick, and Brian Lambkin. 2008. Migration in Irish History 1607–2007. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gershon, Ilana. 2010. The Breakup 2.0. Disconnecting over New Media. New York: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving. 1963. Behavior in Public Places: Notes on the Social Organization of Gatherings. Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Greschke, Heike M. 2012. Is There a Home in Cyberspace? The Internet in Migrants’ Everyday Life and the Emergence of Global Communities. New York and London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2015. “‘Mama, bist Du da?‘ – Zum prekären Status von Anwesenheit in mediatisierten familialen Lebenswelten” medien+ erziehung 591: 70–80.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Greschke, Heike M., Diana Dreßler, and Konrad Hierasimowicz. 2018. ”‘Im Leben kannst Du nicht alles haben‘. Digitale Dynamiken sozialer Ungleichheit in teilweise migrierenden und migrierten Familien.“ In Mediatisierte Gesellschaften. Medienkommunikation und Sozialwelten im Wandel, ed. by Caroline Roth-Ebner, Friedrich Krotz, Matthias Rath, and Andreas Kalinka, 133–159. Baden-Baden: Nomos. Series: Tutzinger Studien zur Politik 12.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Greschke, Heike M. 2019. “Hier, dort und füreinander-da-sein: Zum Verhältnis von Kopräsenz, Lokalität und Fürsorge im mediatisierten Alltag transstaatlich organisierter Familien.“ In Interaktion und Medien. Interaktionsanalytische Zugänge zu medienvermittelter Kommunikation, ed. by Konstanze Marx and Axel Schmidt, 85–98. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, Series: OraLingua No. 17.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Greschke, Heike M., and Josephine Ott. 2019. “Rethinking Community in Migration Studies: Lessons from Transnational Families for Rethinking the Relationship of ‘Community’ and ‘Society’.” In Rethinking Community through Transdisciplinary Research, ed. by Bettina Jansen, 127–143. Cham: Palgrave MacMillan.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hirschauer, Stefan. 2015. “Intersituativität. Teleinteraktionen und Koaktivitäten jenseits von Mikro und Makro.” Zeitschrift für Soziologie 431: 109–133.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Horst, Heather A. 2006. “The Blessings and Burdens of Communication: Cell Phones in Jamaican Transnational Social Fields.” Global Networks 6 (2): 143–159. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jansson, André. 2015. “Polymedia Distinctions: The Sociocultural Stratification of Interpersonal Media Practices in Couple Relationships.” Nordicom Review 36(2): 33–50. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Karayakali, Juliane. 2010. Transnational Haushalten: Biographische Interviews mit ’care workers‘ aus Osteuropa. Wiesbaden: Springer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kofmann, Eleonore. 2008. “Stratifikation und aktuelle Migrationsbewegungen.” In Transnationalisierung sozialer Ungleichheit, ed. by Peter A. Berger and Anja Weiß, 107–135. Wiesbaden: Springer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Krotz, Friedrich. 2007. “The Meta-process of `Mediatization’ as a Conceptual Frame.” Global Media and Communication 3(3): 256–260. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2017. “Explaining the Mediatization Approach.” Javnost – The Public 24 (2): 103–118. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Licoppe, Christian. 2015. “Contested Norms of Presence.” In Präsenzen 2.0, ed. by Kornelia Hahn and Martin Stempfhuber, 97–112. Wiesbaden: Springer Fachmedien. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Licoppe, Christian, and Julien Morel. 2012. “Video-in-Interaction: ‘Talking Heads’ and the Multimodal Organization of Mobile and Skype Video Calls.” Research in Language and Social Interaction 451: 399–429. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lyons, Martyn. 2013. The Writing Culture of Ordinary People in Europe, 1860–1920. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Madianou, Mirca. 2014. “Smartphones as Polymedia.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 191: 667–680. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2016. “Ambient Co-presence: Transnational Family Practices in Polymedia Environments.” Global Networks 16(2): 183–201. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Madianou, Mirca, and Daniel Miller. 2012. Migration and New Media. Transnational Families and polymedia. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Malinowski, Bronislaw. 1923. “The Problem of Meaning in Primitive Languages.” In The Meaning of Meaning. A Study of the Influence of Language Upon Thought and of the Science of Symbolism. Supplementary Essays by B. Malinowski and F. G. Crookshank, ed. by Charles K. Ogden and Ivor A. Richards, 207–336. New York: Harcourt.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McLuhan, Marshall. 1968. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. London: Sphere Books.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Motowidlo, Jagoda. 2019. “’How Can I Be at home again?’: Family (Dis)continuities Concerning Polish Remigration in the context of Digital Communication Technologies.” In Family and Space: Rethinking Family Theory and Empirical Approaches, ed. by Maya Halatcheva-Trapp, Giulia Montanari, and Tino Schlinzig, 181–191. New York: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nedelcu, Mihaela, and Malika Wyss. 2016. “‘Doing family’ through ICT-mediated ordinary Co-presence: Transnational Communication Practices of Romanian Migrants in Switzerland.” Global Networks 16 (2): 202–218. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Park, Robert E. 1970 [1922]. The Immigrant Press nd Its Control. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Parreñas, Rachel Salazar. 2001. Servants of Globalization: Women, Migration and Domestic Work. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pick, James, and Avijit Sarkar. 2015. The Global Digital Divides. Explaining Change. Heidelberg: Springer.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pries, Ludger. 1999. Migration and Transnational Social Spaces. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schütz, Alfred. 1964. Studies in Social Theory. Collected Papers II. Edited and introduced by Arvid Brodersen. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Silverman, David. 2007. Interpreting Qualitative Data. Los Angeles: Sage.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Strauss, Anselm L., and Juliet M. Corbin. 1996. Grounded Theory. Grundlagen qualitativer Sozialforschung. Weinheim: Beltz.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Thomas, William Isaac, and Florian Znaniecki. 1958 [1918]. The Polish Peasant in Europe and America. New York: Dover.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vertovec, Steven. 2004. “Cheap Calls: The Social Glue of Migrant Transnationalism.” Global Networks 41: 219–224. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wilding, Raelene. 2006. “‘Virtual’ Intimacies? Families Communicating across Transnational Contexts.” Global Networks 6(2): 125–142. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (5)

Cited by five other publications

Kloc‐Nowak, Weronika & Louise Ryan
2025. ‘I Kiss the Screen, But It Is Not the Same’ — Grandparenting in Geographically Dispersed Families. Global Networks 25:2 DOI logo
Laube, Stefan
2025. Synthetic Involvement: Digital Co-Presence in the Flesh. Sociology 59:5 ► pp. 962 ff. DOI logo
Androutsopoulos, Jannis
2024. Polymedia procedures. In Media as Procedures of Communication [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 348], ► pp. 292 ff. DOI logo
Tagg, Caroline & Agnieszka Lyons
2024. Conversational rhythm as a disconnective practice among middle-aged adults in situated mobile-messaging interactions. Journal of Pragmatics 229 ► pp. 56 ff. DOI logo
Ducu, Viorela, Mihaela Hărăguș, Daniela Angi & Áron Telegdi‐Csetri
2023. Asserting children's rights through the digital practices of transnational families. Family Relations 72:2 ► pp. 458 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 30 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue