Listening, temporalities and epistemology: A hermeneutical perspective on mediated civic engagement

This paper explores the literature on audience and citizenship with the aim of catching sight of some latent and subterranean trends where embryonic and potential developments of the field may reside. By putting together three research routes within the most recent literature, respectively focused on listening, temporality and epistemology, the analysis shows how their juxtaposition illuminates an overlooked political dimension of reception that has to do with the pure interpretative endeavour which in itself contains some of the elements that nurture the experience of public connection. This enriched understanding of reception as a site for civic agency is made possible by a cross-fertilization between hermeneutical philosophy (Ricoeur, 1991; Alejandro, 1993) and media research. Drawing upon Ricoeur’s notion of second-order reference as a possible world that is disclosed in front of the text, the paper demonstrates how the performative power exerted by media in convening and constituting publics derives and at the same time overcomes the content boundaries of the text, being rooted in the interpretative tasks of our human condition.