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

From mediatization to deep mediatization 25 2. A more detailed description of mediatization Mediatization can be understood as a sensitizing con- cept (JENSEN, 2013, p. 206). A sensitizing concept gives the user a general sense of reference and guidance in approaching em- pirical instances (BLUMER, 1954, p. 7) and draws our attention to (present) changes in culture and society. In these terms, me- diatization sensitizes us to the fundamental changes we experi- ence in the context of our media environment (cf. HEPP; HASE- BRINK, 2017). First, we are confronted with media’s increasing differentiation as the amount of media we encounter rapidly increases and more and more artifacts become media devices. The infrastructure of the internet brings with it the increased connectivity of media and the advent of mobile communications has encouraged media’s omnipresence . The contemporary media environment is characterized by a growing pace of innovation, as the sequence of key innovations in the field of media technol- ogy has significantly hastened over the past thirty years. As a consequence of their digitalization, media are no longer solely means of communication but are also generators of abundant amounts of data leading to the intensifying datafication of media use. The terminology of mediatization complements the more general language of mediation and sensitizes us to the ongoing transformation of the fundamental trends of our everyday me- dia environment. However, sensitizing concepts that are used to empha- size certain phenomena have to be complemented by other ana- lytical tools to ensure that grasping them more rigorously is a straightforward process. The essential analytical principles of mediatization research can be found in both the institutionalist and the socio-constructivist traditions (COULDRY; HEPP, 2013, p. 195-198), yet the manner in which the conceptual work of mediatization is done differs between the two. Put simply, the institutionalist tradition finds its roots in mass communication research that understood media as an independent institution with its own set of rules; so, with this in mind, mediatization for the institutionalists refers to how different social fields may adapt to these institutionalized rules. The social-constructivist