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

Individuals, collectives, and polarization in the unstable situation caused by mediatization and... 253 tions 16 , are essential for us to understand contemporary polar- ization. Not only as schematic phenomena but in their complexi- ties and strains. But maybe not enough because from our per- spective, it is necessary to add a more specific reflection on the status of individuals, the main acceleration factor of divergence according to Verón, and its transformations within the new me- diatization and circulation. 6. Contemporary polarization, mediatization, and circulation: a scale leap in the instability of individuals and groups To end a more general reflection on the question that we tackled in the first part, about mediatization and circulation, now rethought in terms of polarization. We have no doubts that contemporary transformation, which affects semiosis (semiotic network), mediatization, the status of enunciators (social ac- tors), and circulation, is creating new and dynamic processes of convergence and divergence at a global, regional, and local level. Let us remember that, according to Verón, at The end of the his- t ry of a piece of furniture (2009), we live in an era of “growing convergence in production and growing divergence in recep- tion.» But since Verón wrote that text in 2009, ten years have passed, and many things have changed. So it is time to get back to that discussion. In the argument that we are going to present, all these dimensions are essential, but, above all, it is very relevant to pay attention to the difference in actors/ enunciators that exist between modernity/postmodernity, the era of the mass media, and the current one, in which organic enunciators (individuals and collectives) have multiplied, that were previously in recog- nition and are now also in production 17 . Let’s start by attending to this question according to how it can be seen in production , particularly from power- 16 An issue that has been studied by Isidoro Cheresky especially (2015). 17 VERÓN, 2013; CARLÓN, 2016b.