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

Mario Carlón 256 becomes a biographical solution to systemic contradictions “(ibid., p. 40). To which the Polish sociologist adds: “Risks and contradictions continue to be socially produced; the individual is only being charged with responsibility and necessity to face them” (ibid., p. 40). In this context in which individualism “is a destiny, not a choice” (ibid., p. 39), being an individual, it can be said, is far from being a panacea 20 . And it can readily become a frightening situation if we consider that, since then, it is a destination that has become in- creasingly unstable, demanding, and complex. When Bauman wrote in 2000, social media networks had not yet appeared, which gave individuals the possibility of managing, each one, their media (Facebook in 2004; YouTube in 2005; Twitter in 2006; Instagram in 2010; Snapchat in 2011; TikTok in 2016, etcetera). Managing a media is not just for showing and giving an opinion, to satisfy the famous postmodern narcissus. It also implies for individuals a practically mandatory public exposure that is permanently evaluated by their positions. Having almost the obligation to express oneself about the multiplicity and com- plexity of the issues of the time - between flows of meaning that overflow their knowledge and expertise - is, we could say, para - phrasing Beck, the destiny of the contemporary individual, not a choice . It happens to them in the two main modes of circulation of meanings in which they are located and characterize our time: the vertical-horizontal and the transversal (CARLÓN, 2020). Individuals who manage their own media are located in the vertical-horizontal mode concerning the discourses that come from “ above ” (from the mass media) and “horizontal- ly” (from the social media networks). That is to say that they permanently have to pronounce on everything that, on the one hand, is reported by the mass media and, on the other hand, that comes to them “ horizontally ” produced, appropriated, com- mented on, and shared by their “ peers .” And they are located in the transverse circulation mode when the meaning “travels” from “inside out” and from “outside- 20 “The self-containment and self-sufficiency of the individual can also be another illusion: that men and women have no one to blame for their frustrations and concerns does not imply, today more than yesterday, that they can defend them- selves from their frustrations” (BAUMAN, 2003 [2000 ], p. 39).