The volume provides a critical inventory of existing concepts of the subject in communication studies research. In addition, concepts are developed in order to be able to analyze subjectivity in the context of current theoretical debates (including media sociology, cultural studies, psychoanalysis, practice theory, science and technology studies) as well as social, cultural and technical developments (including digitalization, mediatization, mobility and networking). Since subject conceptions are of central importance for any communication and media analyses, the volume fills a central gap in communication and media studies.

Dr. Peter Gentzel is juniorprofessor at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg

Dr. Friedrich Krotz is professor (emer.) at the Center for Media, Communication and Information Research (ZeMKI) at the University of Bremen.

Dr. Jeffrey Wimmer is a professor at the Institute for Media, Knowledge and Communication at the University of Augsburg.

Dr. Rainer Winter is a professor at the Institute for Communication Studies at the University of Klagenfurt.

Introduction.- How does communicating constitute the human being?.- The subject of communicative action, subjectivity and subjectification.- From social interaction to digital networking.- Materiality, technology and the subject: elements of critical communication and media analysis.- Media use and psychoanalysis: theoretical and empirical perspectives.- Subjectification in datafied societies.- Narrative subject constructions in the sign of media and socio-cultural change. Narrative subject constructions in the sign of medial and socio-cultural change.- From subject to user, - and back?.- The history of media-based technologies of the self from Rousseau to Runtastic.- Subject enactment and communication power digital.- On the mediality of pedagogical relations and the medial side of education.- Memes as image-mediated subjectification practices.