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Mediatization of the Automobile

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Dynamics Of Mediatization

Abstract

The automobile and media are inextricably linked. They have a common, lengthy, over-lapping history as instruments and indicators of modernity. And while the experience of automobility is fundamentally a material one, it is equally one of media-influenced meanings. The introduction and steady integration of media into the automobile interior transformed drivers’ and passengers’ experience of automobility. This change, which involved design, marketing and popular culture, constitutes the mediatization of the automobile. Media in cars proliferated and became more sophisticated and were increasingly presented as an essential component of the desirable contemporary automobile. This process accelerated as the operation of cars grew more dependent on computer technology. Together these developments pushed the car’s mediatization into the more radical stage of digitalization, whose next, even more revolutionary change in automobility is the autonomous automobile.

References in the text are made to published material. Otherwise, the study draws on primary sources found in the archives mentioned below. Additional information about them is available from the author.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hampshire College, Amherst, USA

    James Miller

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  1. James Miller
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Correspondence to James Miller .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. The Department of Sociology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom

    Olivier Driessens

  2. Department of Media and Communication Studies, Södertörn University, Huddinge, Sweden

    Göran Bolin

  3. ZeMKI Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research, Universität Bremen, Bremen, Germany

    Andreas Hepp

  4. Department of Media, Cognition, and Communication, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Stig Hjarvard

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Miller, J. (2017). Mediatization of the Automobile. In: Driessens, O., Bolin, G., Hepp, A., Hjarvard, S. (eds) Dynamics Of Mediatization. Transforming Communications – Studies in Cross-Media Research. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62983-4_10

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