Living with media: Rethinking mediatization through the queer life course

Abstract

Over the last three decades, mediatization has been heralded as the new grand theory to explain how social transformations have increasingly become intertwined with media technologies. However, like other grand narratives about historical transformations, it risks failing to take into account the reality of lives in peripheries, not least because they rarely leave their traces in archives. In this article, I explore how media are linked to transformations in queer life course in order to shed light on the significance of evolving media technologies for persons whose lives are shaped by inequalities. Drawing on 60 non-media-centric interviews conducted with LGBTIQ+ people in Germany and the UK, I argue that media images, narratives, and technologies hold the potential to spark crucial turning points in the life course of persons whose needs are not fulfilled by social institutions. While the evolution of media technologies over time has led to increased agency for people to access queer content and engage in interpersonal connection, it simultaneously exacerbates a generational inequality. The results presented here invite us to rethink mediatization from a queer life course perspective, and emphasize the crucial role played by media technologies in shaping the social contexts in which lifeworlds unfold.