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

Andreas Hepp 24 between the transformation of media and communication on the one hand and culture and society on the other (COULDRY; HEPP, 2013, p. 197). With reference to everyday experience it can be said that mediatization has quantitative as well as qual- itative effects. Quantitative observations are concerned with media’s proliferation through society. This can be measured temporally (media were once only available at certain times of day, they can now be accessed twenty-four hours a day), spatially (media in the past were often static, they are now ac- cessible in more places), and socially (our social practices are increasingly entangled with and augmented by a variety of me- dia). Some media scholars have argued that these transforma- tions permeate every social domain, that media have become so pervasive, we can speak of the mediation of everything (LIV- INGSTONE, 2009, p. 1). A qualitative analysis of mediatization focuses its attention, both empirically and theoretically, on the specific consequences of the saturation of everyday life by me- dia and to what extent this affects social and cultural change (for a general introduction, see LUNDBY, 2014). Crucially, me- diatization research does not deal with the effects of individual media content, rather, it is concerned with the ways in which society and human practices are transformed by media’s ever- increasing ubiquity. Taking this definition as a starting point, I want to out - line in the following a more detailed explanation of mediatiza- tion. Based on this, I will explain why we should consider the current stage of mediatization as one of deep mediatization. Fi- nally, I discuss the necessity of extending the perspective of me- diatization research to that of the making of deep mediatization. This is necessary because, with deep mediatization, new kinds of collectivities have become driving forces for change, actors from pioneer communities such as the Quantified Self Move- ment, the Maker Movement or the Hacks/Hacker Movement of pioneer journalism are uses as examples. 2 2 This article is based on arguments from my book “Deep Mediatization” (Rout- ledge 2020). An earlier version was presented at the III International Seminar on mediatization and social processes at UNISINOS, São Leopoldo - RS, in May 2019.