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

Pedro Gilberto Gomes 74 changes, society is undergoing a transformation that results in the establishment of a new ambiance, profoundly related to so- ciety in mediatization. Accordingly, to relate the issue of production of mean- ing in society to mediatization is to place the reflection on a dif - ferent level from that in which it had been seen until now. What we are seeking is the process of building social meaning in an environment marked by the rapid development of digital tech- nologies, involving all dimensions of reality. In a retrospective view of the reflection on communication, we can verify that, at first, it was centered on the action of the emitter. The receiver was passive. The important was who organized the message, passing it directly to the recipient, considered a “tabula rasa.” The starting point was Aristotle’s conception of the art of rhet- oric, which consisted of three parts: speaker, discourse, and listener, aiming to modify the listener’s behavior. Even with the system’s updates and later precision, the conception that there was a direct action from the sender that passed his/her message to a passive receiver still prevailed. This message was considered to have reached the recipient without any external or internal interference. This position has evolved throughout history. We ad- vanced to the vision of an active receptor 2 . What was communi- cated by the emitter underwent an action by the receiver who interpreted it according to his/her reality, placing on the receiv- er’s pole an action that, in a way, counterbalanced the sender’s objective when transmitting the message. Over time, there was a better precision since this action from the receiver was not a pure and simple activity, but one conditioned by mediation. In the relationship between receiver and emitter there were mediations that made the message rein- terpreted from socio-cultural, psychological, individual, family, even video-technological mediations. This position, for example, was inaugurated and developed by Jesús Martín-Barbero, with an apex in his book From Media t Mediations 3 . 2 In 1982, the União Cristã Brasileira de Comunicação (UCBC) began to make this inflection when it rethought its Critical Reading Communication project (LCC). 3 MARTÍN-BARBERO, Jesús. Dos meios às mediações . Rio de Janeiro: Editora da UFRJ, 1997. Later, his thought spread throughout the continent. A great pro-