Media divide and connect simultaneously: they act as intermediaries between otherwise
disconnected entities and as a middle that mediates but also shields different entities from
each other. This ambiguity gives rise to conflicting interpretations and it evokes all those
figures that give a first clue about this janus-faced relationship of connect and divide:
gate-keeper parasite amongst others. If we give accounts of media before and after their
mediated action we refer to persons and organizations automatisms and artifacts signals and
inscriptions and we seem to find it easy to refer to their distinct potentials and dis
abilities. But within the interaction - the middle of media itself seems to be distributed
right across the mix of material semiotic and personal entities involved and the location of
agency is hard to pin down. In case of breakdown we have to disentangle the mix in case of
smooth operations action becomes all the more distributed and potentially untraceable - which
makes its attribution a matter of the simultaneously occuring distribution of (official and
unofficial) knowledge labour and power. The empirical and historical investigation of this
two-faced relationship of connect and divide has thus resulted in a veritable practice turn in
media studies. The publication studies four aspects of the practice turn in media studies:
Media history from a praxeological perspective the practice turn in religion and media studies
the connecting and dividing lines of media theories concerning gender and post_colonial
agencies and a historical and theoretical examination of the current relationship of media
theory and practice theory.
