Localizing the politics of privacy in communication and media research

Abstract

While previous communication and media research has largely focused on either studying privacy as personal boundary management or made efforts to investigate the structural (legal or economic) condition of privacy, we observe an emergent body of research on the political underpinnings of privacy linking both aspects. A pronounced understanding of the politics of privacy is however lacking. In this contribution, we set out to push this forward by mapping four communication and media perspectives on the political implications of privacy. In order to do so, we recur on Barry’s (2002) distinction of the political and the politics and outline linkages between individual and structural dimensions of privacy. Finally, we argue that the media practice perspective is well suited to offer an analytical tool for the study of the multiple aspects of privacy in a political context.