Networks, Society, and Polis: Epistemological Approaches on Mediatization

Muniz Sodré 44 late on whether politics in a broad sense, that is, as an essential event for the organization of human plurality in communities, considering the systematic crisis of the State apparatus and the breakdown of traditional forms of representation, still reveals an institutional path open to civil societies. And along, an inde- pendent journalistic practice – meaning: independence as a rea - sonable balance between the economic corporation and social class position – capable of intervening with a relevant mediating function in the public agenda and with effects of a political na- ture. This function is institutional, halfway between the political and organizational aspects of civil society. Mediation, as we have already emphasized, makes the symbolic transit or “communicates” the property of one element to another, employing a third term, which is a way of articulating two different components. There is, therefore, a dualism implicit in the idea of mediation, reinforced by the notion resulting from “intermediation”, that is, by the approximation, through a third party, between two separate terms. In the public space, this in- termediary can consist of “small groups” (opinion leaders) and gatekeepers (porters or information filters). The traditional press, a hybrid entity of productive organization and institution that shelters free civil expression, has been sociologically char- acterized as this “doorkeeper” – in practice, an intermediary be- tween the citizen and the public sphere. It increases the suspicion, however, that this interme- diation could be influenced by the decomposition of parliamen - tary policy, while new social forms and institutional embryos emerge. In fact, the prestige of the written press stems from mediation politically committed to the incipient 19th-century liberalism, focused on the question of the limits of the nation- state. The press proposes to unveil and combat the secrets of the nation-state power. On the other hand, it is culturally an heir to the Enlightenment, which contributed strongly to the renewal of living standards through the defense of rational discourse and scientific investigation. In the second half of the 19th century, journalism was instrumental in improving the liberal conditions for discussion and persuasion, paving the way for the democracy of opinions in a public space in line with the Industrial Revolution and politi-