Communicative Figurations and Cross-Media Research

Inspired by the contributions to this volume, and anchored in recent theories of mediatization, this postscript reflects on the achievements and potentials of the figurational approach in cross-media communication studies. Seeing the volume as a demonstration of the development of the figurational approach from a helpful heuristic lens to a mature operational theoretical framework, the postscript exemplifies this development through a description of three of the book’s case studies. It is suggested that the figurational approach may benefit from building a more precise consensus about what constitutes a core research agenda for cross-media research under conditions of mediatization. Finally, based on a chapter which is purely methodological, the postscript discusses the validity of different qualitative interview designs for the non-mediacentric study of cross-media use.