Repair Cafés as Communicative Figurations: Consumer-Critical Media Practices for Cultural Transformation

TLDR: In this paper, the authors presented results of a qualitative study in which Repair Cafes have been analyzed from a perspective of media and communication studies, and the focus of the study was on the people repairing media technologies as well as the organizers of the events.

Abstract: Repair Cafes are new events in which people meet to work together on repairing their objects of everyday life such as electronic devices, textiles or bicycles—media technologies being among the goods which are brought most often to these events. In this chapter, results of a qualitative study are presented in which Repair Cafes have been analyzed from a perspective of media and communication studies. Choosing this approach, the focus of the study was on the people repairing media technologies as well as the organizers of the events. Following a figurational perspective, the actor constellation, the frames of relevance as well as the communicative and media practices are analyzed. Thereby, not only the mediated communication processes were defined as media practices but also the act of repairing media technologies itself. Understanding these repairs as media practice, it is argued that the term media practice has to be understood in a broad sense in media and communication studies, not only taking into account what people do with media content but also what they do with media technologies.