Book review: Nick Couldry, Sociologia dei nuovi media. Teoria sociale e pratiche mediali digitali (2015)

One of the most interesting debate in the field of the Media Studies is about which is the role played by the social theory. This debate takes place from the critique of postmodernism and disappearing of the social that usually afflicts cultural studies and thereby media studies. Trying to solve this problem, Nick Couldry makes an intellectual operation very delicate as much as fascinating: the proposal of a socially oriented media theory. This proposal is very important from two points of view. First of all, because media in social theory always have a marginal role, usually considered as a useful addendum of wide social processes. More often is emerging a demand of a sociology with the media and no more – or not only – a sociology of the media, in the same way in the relationship between culture and society there is the need of a cultural sociology and not simply a sociology of culture (Alexander, 2003). Secondly is getting more and more stronger the need of use the ability of the social theory to going deep into media processes, because the study of the media never has the social theory it deserves. For outline this socially oriented media theory, Couldry tries to define a social ontology based on two key concepts: the social practices and the media. The centrality of social practices makes the argument inside the current debates on the importance of the social phenomenon considered as tools the people use to makes sense of the world