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

Lucrécia D´Alessio Ferrara 264 1. The diversity of mediatization If medialogy establish differences, which create oppo- sitions between technical and communication media, theoreti- cal and heuristic epistemologies, nomological-deductive meth- odologies, and inductive or abductive hypothesis, mediatiza- tion point to ambivalences that overcome oppositions because, among them, symmetries or asymmetries, polarizations or di- chotomies are not established, but diversities and multiplicities. In this way, the polarization that would draw singular and in- dividual characteristics is overcome to adhere to collective and multiple singularities. That is, the differences give space not for polarizations but for antagonisms that lead to the perception of the differences between the singular identity and the plurality of the other (MOUFFE, 1996, p. 13). Differences and diversities study approximations and distances between technical media and mediatization; thus, the main interest of mediatization is of a more epistemological and general nature than a descriptive and phenomenological one. Within this diversity, media, information and communi- cation or techniques, culture and society are all confronted. Con- fusion regarding the plural form “media” of the Latin noun me- dium gave rise to the neologism “ midia 2 ” almost dictionaried, as it gets used with a clear semantic guideline that designates the means but understands them in their intention and pragmatical effects. In this sense, the means become media because what is in question is not the technological uniqueness of each medium or group of media, but its performative cultural effect that inter- sects mediations and interactively affects the mediatization. Working with digital media and especially with the Internet, Dominique Wolton (2008, p. 149) distinguishes three levels of analysis: the Internet user, the individual, and the citi- zen who, when in an interface, complete themselves on the In- ternet, the planetary connection, and the network. Such inter- face process makes it possible to evidence an axis of analysis that interests this work: 2 From this root, the word mediatization is formed in Portuguese (midiatização).