Mediatization, polarization, and intolerance (between environments, media, and circulation)

159 Surveillance of the watchmen: analytics of mediatization and newsworthiness Ada C. Machado da Silveira 1 Abstract: The text is dedicated to addressing the perspective on mediatization of the professional journalist-news universe, cir- cumscribed by the notion of newsworthiness. The proposition of an analysis of mediatization and newsworthiness in face of the communicational questioning of journalistic mediation allows us to study the alleged centrality of the media in the communi- cation process. The argument focuses on the effort of evaluating news activity in a specific scenario. It deals with the disempow - erment of institutional public security agents, who responded by collaborating to strengthen the political-police-military agen- da in the coverage of the mainstream media and digital social media. From the point of view of the increase of news content the process emphasizes the military intervention that took place in the city of Rio de Janeiro in 2018 and, finally, the return of the military to the government of the Brazilian state in 2019, seen as the visible face of the institutional crisis of the surveillance regime. Keywords : Mediatization. Newsworthiness. Journalism. Media. Communication. Public Security. 1 Full Professor, member of the permanent staff of PPG-Comunicação at Universi- dade Federal de Santa Maria. CNPq researcher. Collaborator of the Professional Master’s Degree in Communication and Creative Industry at Universidade Fed- eral do Pampa. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7554-2248. E-mail: ada. silveira@ufsm.br