Networks, Society, and Polis: Epistemological Approaches on Mediatization

Discussing mediatization of politics based on the portuguese case 121 deliberation – as is the case with the commentary sphere, it re- mains a relevant research question in the age of the internet and social media. II – The relationship between the media and politics in the Western and Portuguese contexts The interaction between the media and politics in the Western world has always been characterized by a high level of ambivalence, oscillating between complicity and confrontation, since both need each other’s resources to achieve their goals. This mutual dependence has taken on different shapes over time and in different political contexts. The variations os- cillate between the partisanship of the media (McQUAIL, 1992) and different degrees of control between journalists and politi - cians, in an ever-changing balance of powers (DAVIS, 2009). The most recent literature, however, has challenged this perspective, arguing that politics is progressively more dependent on the me- dia as a result of mediatization. The term signals the political process centered on me- dia logics (BLUMLER; KAVANAGH, 1999; MAZZOLENI; SCHULZ, 1999; ESSER; STRÖMBÄCK, 2014; MARCINKOWSKI, 2014; FIGUEIRAS, 2017a). However, this process should not be under- stood as a direct result of the development of the media . These are a necessary condition, but not sufficient to explain the me- diatization of politics. Thus, the history of the mediatization of politics is not explained by the development of the media , but by the historical developments that produced the possibility of mediatization. The mediatization of politics is part of a more general process underway in developed and post-industrial democracies. In the process of modernizing societies, mediatization is a consequence of social complexity resulting from the growing functional differentiation of specialized and autonomous sys- tems that fight for the defense and expansion of their interests (LUHMANN, 1997). This specialization, however, produced limi - tations in each system, making them dependent on the action of others to ensure specific structural needs. Within the scope