Power dynamics and the VillageTalk app: Rural mediatisation and the sense of belonging to the village community as communicative figuration

Abstract Rural mediatisation defines the simultaneous transformation of rural community life and its media environment, particularly in the digital age. Typical rural problems such as declining meeting places are being addressed by developing village-specific communication apps. Due to the so-called “urban bias,” not much is known about rural mediatisation, and theoretical concepts are also lacking. This study addresses this research gap by analysing three German village communities, where a village communication app has been introduced. For this analysis, the applicability of the approach of communicative figurations (Hepp and Hasebrink, 2017) is assessed and further developed by adding the dimension of “power dynamics” to the characteristics. Moreover, the findings indicate that a rediscovered sense of belonging to the village community, resulting from a combination of internal and external factors, is a transformation associated with this process of rural mediatisation.