Networks, Society, and Polis: Epistemological Approaches on Mediatization

José Luiz Braga 246 leads to the unpredictable, this indistinction between the pos- sible and the necessary, this knowledge instability. A long-established network has a somewhat clear per- ception of its justifications for action, as well as of strategies for coping with its objectives. In this space, communication can be limited almost to a spontaneous adoption of usual practices. The urgencies, although less foreseen, have a collection of indi- cations for strategic adjustments to the changing circumstance. When, however, there is an intense transformation of circumstances in a larger quantity of sectors, skilled fields, insti - tutions, public and private worlds, society can no longer main- tain the comfort of the “already shared” to ensure its interac- tions. We then enter a phase that may be somehow long, with the need for substantial adjustments, less controlled experimen - tation, expanded evidence of social invention. Precisely, this is what occurs in the current phase of social mediatization. The offer of potentialities at the individual level, not previously available, for interactive actions very di- verse from those already established as well as their access to a large number of interactional agents, opens up this space (and need) for experimentation. First, socially faced problems with more usual solu- tions and strategies start to bring more effective solutions with new resources. Then, the experimental strategies per se gener- ate new urgencies. This corresponds to what Foucault described as a “perpetual strategic fulfillment” (FOUCAULT, 1994, p. 299). In other words: more than the material characteristics of new technologies, we observe the impact, on “previous” so- cial networks and social communication in general, of this sud- den and expanded possibility of doing what was already done, now in very different ways, and of doing things that we could not due to the lack of circulation lines, absence of concrete flow conditions. VI – The challenges It is necessary, then, to observe the social urgencies that appear in the form of redirecting the usual problems of so-