Time, social theory and media theory: contributions of Schutz to the understanding of new social realities

Abstract

This article aims to contribute to the debate about time and the new social realities resulting from recent changes in the media field bringing social theory and media theory together. For this, we propose a rereading of a well-known author in social theory: Alfred Schutz. Schutz was one of the most productive authors of social theory and designed a broad theoretical framework involving many aspects of social life. He also emphasized the importance of media and brought significant contributions to the debate through the discussion of the concept of time. The author did not think time only descriptively, but opened a deep and conceptual dialogue that, we believe, is useful for understanding new social realities brought by the internet, both for media theories and social theories. The article has two sections, each corresponding to an approach to time made in Schutz, and in media theories and recent social theories. The first one focuses on a possible acceleration of time and the second one discusses the relation of time to memory. We bring Schutz's contributions to these phenomena, fostering the debate between social theory and media theory, as well as contributing conceptually to recent reflections.