Networks, Society, and Polis: Epistemological Approaches on Mediatization

Antonio Fausto Neto 102 mediate strains, such as those that recently involved Facebook and journalistic organizations, when the presence of pages from the latter in the Facebook environment was reduced in favor of individuals. At the time, Facebook released a note explaining that the surveys carried out by the social network pointed to the reduction of moments and contacts between its users, and based on this, announced that it would reduce the space granted to communication companies on its pages (Meio e Mensagem, 2018). Somehow, Facebook stops the presence of institutional media on its page, discouraging a type of interaction that would value the circulation of journalistic services, as well as the opin - ion of its institutions, but something that would generate less fi - nancial income for the institution. Facebook retreats in promot- ing interactions between “old and new media” systems, some- thing modest for its ambitions which go beyond a mediational place (Meio e Mensagem, 2018). Articulations between “old” and “new” media occur through tensions generated by the mediatization of events, highlighting new problems resulting from the affects between media cultures and other institutional cultures. Already at the beginning of this century, a news story foreshadowed the effects of the coupling relationships between legal and media systems. It highlights images from the Brazilian Superior Federal Court (STF) session in which judges make use of the intranet to com - bine, through electronic conversations, voting on a matter about the monthly fee: “Combined vote on the network – Supreme Ministers speculate about the connection between judgment and succession in court” (O Globo, 08/23/2007). The denounce - ment points to marks of a process of circulation of messages and negotiations in the STF environment, escaping the areas and limits of its rituals and practices. It initiates reactions from representatives of various social fields, making the circulation of the event much complex: “OAB sees Big Brother culture; lawyers defend publication” (FSP, 08/24/2007); “Jobim states that the publication of dialogue is unconstitutional” (FSP, 08/24/2007, p. 8). The transcription of dialogues and images of conversations between judges, by newspapers, still leads to readings by vari - ous actors. The former president of the Congress, José Sarney, re- lates the fact to the transformation of the physical environment