Networks, Society, and Polis: Epistemological Approaches on Mediatization

Scope and variations of the concept of mediatization 37 gaze is not inverted in the sense of going from mediations to the media but from culture to communication” (2014, p. 71). And Martín-Barbero, quoted by Braga (2012), emphasized that “[it is] necessary to assume not the priority of the media, but that the communicative is becoming a protagonist in a very strong way”. (MARTÍN-BARBERO, 2009, p. 152, ap. BRAGA, 2012; italics removed by the author). Martín-Barbero, however, although emphasizing the role of the communicational, does not refer explicitly to the phenomenon of mediatization. The term mediatization seems to have been introduced in Latin America by Eliseo Verón, in the article Esquema para el análisis de la mediatización (1997), referring to that moment when the logics of the media start to reach all social practices. In England, Roger Silverstone (2002, 2005) 7 prioritizes the concept of mediation when referring to how communication processes change the social and cultural environment that sup- ports them, as well as the relationship that individuals and insti- tutions have with their environment and with each other. Nick Couldry (2008) criticizes the concept of mediatization since it would be indicating the logic of the media – when different me- dia operate in a different logic. The author, thus, prefers the con- cept of mediation, which could capture the variety of dynamics within the media flows. It is mainly Scandinavian researchers who reinforce the use of the term mediatization. Hjarvard (2014, p. 16) points out the limits of the concept of mediation, which focuses on the communicative process itself, while mediatization would have a broader scope – dealing with long-term and large-scale struc- tural transformations. In this perspective, the media stands as the grand and definitive mediation of cultural and social life. In this conceptual clash, the risk (in the use of mediati- zation) is tending to the mediacentrism, to technological deter- minism. If it is very evident that current studies of the commu- nicative scenario (and of contemporary times) cannot do with- out the analysis of the presence and role of communicational technologies (of techno-mediations), separate communication 7 Regarding Silverstone, see the interesting article by Serelle (2016).