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

Mediatization, society, and meaning: Transversal concepts 77 culation, beyond the superficiality of the phenomenon, we can state that a path is going from media to mediatization. In other words, a path that goes from a media society to a society in the process of mediatization 5 . When the concept of circulation 6 is brought up for re- flection and linked to the issue of mediatization, we are faced with a position that advocates a different and deeper view of what circulation is. Fausto Neto does not use circulation in the manner of common sense, that is, how messages circulate in so- ciety, in the emitter/receiver relationship. When relating the concept of circulation to the concept of mediatization, he is saying that in this process of circulation in society - in the issue of messages of interrelations - we must go beyond common sense, beyond the superficiality of the concept. In this circulation process, both the emitter and the receiver, also the society in which these media operate, undergo transfor- mations, and are modified in the circuit. Based on Eliseo Verón’s positions 7 , Fausto Neto states that we must go beyond what surfaces, beyond the objective phenomenon of message circulation, seeing this circulation as the builder of a new society and a new ambiance. People and so- ciety are modified by the circulation process that happens from technologies that we are using. Emitter, receiver, society, and the media are not simply material things in which an announcer transmits to the listener, an announcer who has a medium, a message, an announcer who sophisticates his/her instruments, and a receiver who has to de- code the message that receives. Nobody participates with impu- nity in this process. Antônio Fausto Neto develops, more rigorously, a work that considers the concept of circulation. One of the articles, among many, where he explains his thought was published in 5 For this point, see the works of Antônio Fausto Neto, Jairo Ferreira, and Pedro Gil - berto Gomes. 6 A concept held dear to Antônio Fausto Neto, professor, and researcher linked to the Research Line Mediatization and Social Processes of the PPG in Communication at Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos (UNISINOS), in São Leopoldo, RS, Brazil. 7 The Argentinian researcher considered the first on the continent to speak on media- tization. Semiologist, he worked in France, with fruitful intellectual production. He published, among others, Semiosis Social I and Semiosis Social II.