Networks, Society, and Polis: Epistemological Approaches on Mediatization

Ana Paula da Rosa 194 the conditions of production of access and circu- lation of messages, and another, entirely differ- ent – and, therefore, not covered by convergence – relates to the requirements of the production of meanings (FAUSTO NETO, 2016, p. 56). It implies that the wish that more access to dispositifs would increase the social access to discourse and, therefore, to the meaning is illusory. Such a statement is appropriate when we consider that access does not translate itself into more voic- es, but in more people making use of different technologies, especially photographic ones powered by mobile devices such as cell phones. There are many images around us, but are there many perspectives? Or do such images only lead us to non-vi- sion? Provocations are important when media convergence and the proliferation of dispositifs are considered revolutionary. Un- doubtedly, we are facing new forms of contact made possible by the offer, but they are not necessarily effective appropriations 2 . In this sense, Verón (1997, p. 14-15) already highlighted that “the conditions of access to messages and the conditions of ac- cess to meaning are two entirely different problems. The first refers to the operation of explicit economic rules [...] The second corresponds to an analysis in recognition.” The author reinforces it is not enough to understand media production, but that it is also necessary to pay attention to the way of dealing and, therefore, recognizing what individuals do with what they produce. Transposing it to our discussion of images, this means that we can no longer understand access to cameras and cell phones as a unique path between production, anchored in market logics, and the multiplicity of viewing angles on an issue or fact. Nor do we think that the individual does not develop tactics that escape the logics of production since one also produces as one ascends to the media. Mario Carlón (2012) has precisely studied this process of ascent and descent of social actors to the media, along with their amateur logics. 2 We understand appropriation based on Proulx [2014] “as the act that subverts the logics of the apparatus. Such doing goes beyond the use of the technical ob- ject. This becomes an input for other actions that are much more complex, and imply literacy regarding the logics of media, the apparatus itself, and the under- standing of communication.”