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

Hypotheses about polarization, mediatization, and algorithms 303 recipe or predictions about the climate, including city manage- ment, politics, etcetera. We suggest a starting point: the algorithm is, above all, a mental experience. Without it, life would be impossible. It re- fers to the system of possibilities and alternative decisions se- quenced in the execution of operations to be carried out. When- ever there is an algorithm, life seems to get easier. This “ cogni- tiv logic ” accompanies us in all activities in face of the natural and social environment, concerning our bodies, affections, prob- lems, solutions, and projects. This materialization is essential to the mediatization processes (VERÓN, 2014; FERREIRA, 2018). In culture, the algorithms confuse themselves with the operations, but it is important to consider that they are dif- ferent, even if articulated. The most uncomplicated example is a set of mathematical operations for addition, division, mul- tiplication, subtraction, root extraction, and potentiation. The rules that sequence these operations, in a concrete or abstract problem, are essential to the results. They constitute the algo- rithm, although some authors (we will see, next, in the section on appropriations in the field of computing) call the operations of algorithms, too. Cultures are rich in these references. But in cultures, there is not an algorithm, but more andmore diversity. It leads to a problem: what happens when two or more individuals are in- teracting but have different systems, sequences, and operations? In these interactions, we suggest that interesting objects emerge for anthropological, communication, and media research. Social uses of these material media can be private, spe- cialized, or public at different levels - and for mediatization, social uses in the public space are fundamental. As the mental experience materializes in new media - iron, chipped stone, the city, the wheel, among others - new processes of production and consumption of these media are constituted, in a sphere that does not reduce to what each of the poles is; but it should be the object of investigation since the place is different - circulation. In the retroaction of these accesses, uses, practices, and appro- priations on social interactions, new social relations are often configured, in the sphere of culture, economics, and politics; but especially and centrally in the directions that the circulation