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

Mediatization, society, and meaning: Transversal concepts 79 volves a third element: the issue of the answer that completes the circuit. In a 2006 text 14 , Braga understands mediatization as the set of socio-technological reformulations, where media processes shift to the reference interactional process. His reflection starts fromwhat defines an interactional process as hegemonic. He pro - poses to approachmediatization as an interactive process at a fast pace to become the “reference 15 ” process. For him, An interactional ‘reference’ process, in a deter- mined context, sets the tone for the subsumed processes [...]. Thus, within the logic of mediatiza- tion (sic), the social processes of media interaction start to include, to encompass the others, which do not disappear but adjust. 16 In this sense, the “interactional reference process” is a perspective of society’s organization. Such processes are the principal drivers in the construction of social reality 17 . Society builds social reality through interactional processes by which individuals, groups, and sectors of society relate 18 . The understanding made explicit by Braga places the interactional reference process as a concept of extreme relevance for the study of mediatization since it, transversely, permeates the consideration of each medium in the research on media processes. 3.3. Dispositifs Another transversal theme that cannot be ignored in the study of mediatization and media processes is the notion of dispositifs , inscribed in Jairo Ferreira 19 ’s research horizon, which starts from the conception that circulation is abstract. Its realiza- tion happens through the analysis of media dispositifs. They are 14 Text presented at the Compós Meeting. 15 Cf. ibidem, p. 2. 16 Ibidem. 17 Cf. ibidem, p. 3. 18 Cf. ibidem. 19 Professor of the same Program and Research Line.