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

Surveillance of the watchmen: analytics of mediatization and newsworthiness 165 To face a research program established around jour- nalistic mediation as an organized activity and subject to spe- cific rules allows for a very recent way of entering media studies. The journalistic activity recognizes a crisis scenario regarding its canonical values, which, besides, allows the questioning of communication competence and legitimacy. The crisis scenar- io is defined. especially, by the mobilization of journalistic ve - hicles when affected by the irradiation of social media, which promotes collaborative and nonhierarchical practices (DEUZE; WITSCHGE, 2013). They are, therefore, processes arising from the frank adherence of journalistic mediation, conceived as a self-regulating system, to mediatization. 3. The communication crisis of journalistic mediation The crisis can be taken from the dispersion of the jour- nalistic power to report the reality in face of the emergence of social media. Proximities, localism, amateurism, non-profes- sionalism came to be seen as attractions that discourage jour- nalistic professionalism. Gradually, activities based on fragile foundations started to be incorporated in the news coverage, structuring a meta-coverage incorporating strictly regulated professional activities, supported by popular production con- tent that legitimizes through the content found on the spot and offered spontaneously. The transformations in the activity of production/cir- culation of news provide the opportunity to articulate the insti- tutionalist tradition of mediatization (occupied by professional media) to another of a socially constructed character (occupied by social media) (HEPP, 2014). Observing Brazilian news con- sumption, the phenomenon of the emergence of a new social group has led to a shift in the visibility of a significant portion of the Brazilian population. The social identity of the inhabitants of peripheral spaces started to be exhibited not by their support networks, reciprocity, and solidarity, but by the consumption capacity of the “new middle class.” The presence of the periph- ery in weekly magazines was, therefore, a news innovation, as