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

17 in relation to the wealth of positions and the bibliographic refer- ence, called my attention: the number of citations from academ- ic journals. Once again, I stubbornly concluded: we do not quote journals. We quote books. More than that, we quote renowned authors published in books. What is wrong with it? In principle, nothing. But it seems that science, the so-called “true science”, only believes in journals. At most, it tolerates books, while it can- not get rid of them. We need the mediation of the editors and the prior legitimation of peers as blind as justice. What if this is a confession of scientific impotence, the claim that we have no instruments to measure the value of a text? We cannot present the degree of effectiveness and safety of our product. Our vac- cine is open. Otherwise, it would be enough for each one to hang their article on a personal or institutional website and wait for the safe, slow, or hasty, fair, or reckless judgment of their peers. There could not be many variations in judgment. After all, they all master the same tools and the same parameters. But we are an argumentative and consequentialist sci- ence. Our truths depend on many unstable factors. We do not know why one brother became a liberal and the other a Marxist, having both been mediated by the same educational process, un- der the same conditions of formation. Adhering to a discourse, a matrix, a narrative, however, has consequences: the world of those who choose is affected. The person will live in one way and not in another. Mediatization is still an offer of meaning capable of functioning. The problem lies in so many variations. Hence, perhaps, when it comes to the academic world, the possibility of a “toll theory”. Better said, more modestly, a “toll hypothesis”. And if it were the case, as the toll concessionaires in Brazil want, to close all escape routes: books, international journals, publica- tions on Amazon, etcetera. To block everything that is beyond the control of authorized mediation. Hypothesis, as Jean Bau- drillard might say, pataphysics. A curious system based on publication without objec- tive points for those who pay for publications. A system that devalues b​ ooks and essays to some extent but is legitimized by quoting essayists (almost every philosopher is an essayist, or not?). What does this have to do with the book on mediatiza- tion on-screen? The screen. And the book. To read André Lemos,