Screenness and organizing: sociomaterial practices in mediated worlds

Purpose In the contemporary society, new digital media play a key role in organizing both companies and the public sector, as well as public transportation systems in metropolitan areas and similar technological macro‐systems. Humans are encountering digital media through the screen but the underlying mechanisms and structure of the screen, their screenness, remain relatively poorly explored in organization theory. Literature on new media, visual studies, and studies of financial trading is used with the aim of presenting a case in favour of a more integrated understanding of the role of screens in organizing, unearthing screens and portraying them not as insignificant elements of a dull infrastructure but as key components in the day‐to‐day organizing of firms and social space. Design/methodology/approach The paper draws on secondary literature addressing the role of screens and screenness in everyday organizing. Findings Drawing on a study of financial trading, screens are envisaged as the surfaces on which the financial traders' life‐worlds present themselves and are enacted, rendering the abstract flows of capital and innumerable financial transactions meaningful and tangible through the use of certain aesthetics and geometries of representation. Originality/value The conceptual paper combines literature from a number of disciplines and theoretical perspectives.